Kevin May of Tnooz reports, “It’s not just startups trying to capture the mood for developing natural language and semantic search in travel – Expedia is quietly working on its own platform. The project is being run out of a new research and development department within Expedia Affiliate Network and is currently aimed at providing partner sites with the early stages of natural language search using the mounds of data collected elsewhere around the Expedia portfolio. A sandbox site, YourVisit, is also up and running for testing (EAN admits it is a bit rough around the edges, but is in place purely for demonstration and beta purposes).” Read more

Jeff Bertolucci of Information Week recently discussed how the evolution of Big Data may be just what the Semantic Web needs to reach its full potential. He writes, “In a phone interview with InformationWeek, Cambridge Semantics CTO Sean Martin summed up the Semantic Web in a nutshell: ‘In essence, all you’re doing is tagging data and giving it a description of what it is… If you can put more information in — more metadata with the data — then the software can interrogate the data to find out what the data is, and what it’s capable of,’ added Martin, who believes the rise of big data could help spur the adoption of Semantic Web technologies.” Read more

According to Charles Arthur of the Guardian, Microsoft has obtained a patent for augmented reality glasses, and the possibilities for semantic technology to be incorporated are endless. Arthur writes, “Microsoft has been given a patent on ‘augmented reality’ (AR) glasses that would enhance sports and other live events with streams of information beamed directly in front of the user – even including action replays and lyrics of songs. The move means that it could soon join Google in offering AR systems for widespread use, after the search giant unveiled its own Google Glass project earlier this year, intended to be used all the time as the user goes about their daily life.” Read more

According to a new article out of the company, “Leadspace, Inc. today announced that it has joined Marketo LaunchPoint, Marketo’s ecosystem of marketing solutions. By integrating with the Marketo marketing software, Leadspace will enable B2B marketing and sales organizations to lift conversion rates, boost productivity and grow their pipeline. The Leadspace Social Lead Targeting platform uniquely analyzes the presence of individuals and companies on social networks, web sites and multiple contact databases, helping marketers and sales people to: Discover new, hyper-targeted prospects; Create highly specialized and segmented lead lists; Rank leads based on their online presence.” Read more

Advertising platform C.A.S.T. wants to attract premium publishers interested in the concept of native advertising, and also interested in leveraging its possibilities through contextual and categorical targeting, among other means.

The company, which has been offering its advertising technology to its strategic partners for the last couple of years, now is bringing the platform to the broader medium- and large-size publisher market. “We see native advertising as advertising that integrates seamlessly as a very natural part of site-user behavior,” says Omer Kaplan, CEO and co-founder.

Today, native advertising is about helping publishers to have not only new but better-quality and more engaging inventory to sell to their advertisers, he says. With a native approach, ad units can be customized in terms of the placement and look of sponsored content that is related to what users are reading and what they are looking for – that is, designed with the semantics of the content in mind for a more natural flow between content and ads.

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According to an article out of VivaKi,  the company has announced “a partnership with The Echo System and Voxsup. The combination of The Echo System and Voxsup gives Publicis Groupe clients access to unparalleled brand insights and solutions through a social intelligence platform that mines over four years of social data from every major social network.  These unique social insights are served up via proprietary algorithms that deliver an unmatched level of brand, platform and competitive intelligence.” Read more

According to a recent article out of the company, “Market intelligence leader Cipher Systems is launching ‘Knowledge.Hub’, a knowledge management and a strategic intelligence platform based on Microsoft SharePoint 2010. Knowledge.Hub leverages some of SharePoint’s most innovative collaboration and content sharing capabilities, and is powered by a unique federated search feature, which provides a single point of search across internal documents, social media and web news. Knowledge.Hub is designed to help business professionals share important content and generate value-added strategic intelligence across their organization.” Read more

Networked Insights reports that the company has launched an innovator trial program for its SocialSense semantic platform. According to the article, “SocialSense is the first platform that places smart and actionable real-time consumer insights into the hands of brand advertisers as well as media and entertainment companies. The platform leverages Networked Insights‘ years of expertise developing solutions for the world’s most innovative brand marketers, enabling real-time marketing decisions that keep brands in-sync with their target audiences. The result is improved brand planning, targeting, messaging and activations.” Read more

UpWest Labs reports, “At a Demo Day held in Palo Alto, UpWest Labs unveiled six new under-the-radar startups from its third graduating class of their startup accelerator focused on supporting Israel’s best entrepreneurs.  The six startups presented a broad spectrum of technologies including context-aware & mobile content solutions, data mining & semantic technologies, mobile ecommerce platform and online video infrastructure.” Read more

According to a new article out of the company, “Digilant™, the leading consolidated media-buying platform, today announced the release of Digilant Multicultural, a marketing system designed to pinpoint specific audiences including U.S. Hispanic, African American, Asian, and LGBT. Digilant Multicultural uses semantic language, geographic information, and other proprietary attributes to match an advertiser’s preferred audience in real-time to video, display, and mobile advertising placements. ‘Digilant Multicultural helps brands zero in on a very specific audience, which is arguably the most difficult point of any campaign,’ said Rafael Hernandez, vice president of multicultural initiatives at Digilant. ‘We’ve created a system that allows brands to better reach a defined audience and better value those members to increase overall advertising efficiency’.” Read more