Usability Views Article Details  home | timeline | recent | popular | e-reports | userati | books | about  A golden vein (10 Jun 2004) Numerous start-ups are also working in the area of text analytics, as the field is called. Randy Clark of ClearForest, one such start-up based in New York, points out that one of the most effective current areas for text analytics lies in semi-structured data, such as the notes taken by operators in call centres. Though the name of the customer may be present in a separate, structured field, the nature of his or her complaint is usually entered in unstructured prose in a different field. Analysing this text can help a manufacturer identify a product that is going wrong in a particular way and enable them to fix it. The bits of text in question are generally short and straightforward, and the topic is well defined, so NLP software has a good chance of interpreting it correctly. Article URL: http://www.economist.com/science/tq/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2724407 Read 42 more articles from Economist sorted by date, popularity, or title. Next Article: An open-source shot in the arm? This site is a labour of love built by Chris McEvoy