On Wednesday I will attend the SMILA (Semantic Information Logistics Architecture) conference in Berlin.

SMILA is a java framework which allows you to  access and search unstructured information.

Example: The WebCrawlerPipelet extracts content from a website and the LuceneIndexPipelet stores the content in a specified lucene index. Via the http-requests you can access and search the index instantly – (have a look at the “5 Minutes to Success” article).

As the name  ”pipelet” implies, you can assemble various pipelets in one pipeline (using BPEL). For me that’s the key feature of SMILA: assemble different services to enrich your content. That’s how we are currently exploring SMILA for veeeb.
As you may know, we are currently getting information about extracted topics (or entities) in veeeb via freebase.com – for example we get freebase information about the person Heidi Klum. freebase has a lot of topics and a lot of information about them. But its all in english and its only one repository.

Via SMILA we will be able to aggregate information in other sources like wikipedia and even custom repositories for example about persons in your company and provide the author with this information. This new service we are developing is not only useful in veeeb but will also be useful in other applications.

I am looking forward to the conference to see how others are using SMILA.

Have a look at SMILA.

Christoph

It´s been quite a while since we last updated our veeeb editor. We were working on some pretty cool new features for you.
We´ve added a few usability enhancements as well as a great new view to work with.
In the past you got only a little tooltip for extracted topics, now there is a complete view for that. You get the description of the topic, an image (if available) and the information from freebase about that displayed topic.

But thats not all. You will find this view very similar to the image detail view, where you can get detailed information about a found image. As with the image view you can cycle through the topics without closing the view.
On some extracted topics from your text there are multiple possible matches from freebase, like for instance you have the word “Obama” in your text. For this you can find several terms on freebase, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama or Barack Obama Sr. You can access those terms directly on the extracted topics with all their information.

Now that we have the basics covered, let´s digg in to the cool stuff.
If you have people in your text and those people have a Twitter account, you can view their last tweets right in the editor, to see what they were up to in the last time.
With that you can enrich your text with on the minute information about your subject.

But thats not all. For locations like cities or countries we have included a Google Maps view. (To use this feature in your blog you have to get a Google Maps API Key for the domain you are running your blog on. Follow to signup)

The new veeeb semantic editor has a new Look&Feel: tidied up, clearer and more effective.

The feedback of our customers is very important to us. Based on their remarks we completely redesigned the Look&Feel of the first editor. The result is very appealing as we might say.

The veeeb semantic editor is now much more adjusted to redactional work. Writing an article on a bright background is a lot more fun. Semantic topcis of the text are now much better organized and easier to use. Searching for media is better seperated from writing but always in an easy access.

Just try it on  www.veeeb.com

veeeb semantic editor in new Look&Feel

Happy New Year to everybody!

in 2011 we will be changing a lot. The veeeb editor will get a new elegant and userfriendly design and will be implemented in a very promising portal around writing and selling articles. I would not tell to much, but there will be more information in february, so stay tuned

Until then have a look at these interesting links, which will keep you busy until the release of the new veeeb editor:

• memolane.com
  still beta – your personal web timeline: view and share your entire online life in one place
• semantic-api.com
  a very interessting semantic API which extracts expressions of opinions
• semanticengineland article
  “The Big List: 168 Marketing Trends, Predictions & Resolutions For 2011” on searchengineland.com

Have a nice start in 2011.

We have a few goodies for the weekend for you.

With the new Amazon plugin you can search for products to buy from Amazon.com. You can add them to your text by drag&drop and they are displayed as links so that your readers can also by them.

To give you the full range of providers for high quality Royalty-Free images we have added the service of Dreamstime.com to our plugin repository. Now you can browse another 9,500,000 images, buy the ones you like and add them to your blog posts.

We have also made quiet a big change in how you work with our editor. The known veeeb tab is still there, but when you click it, you´re in for a treat. To use our editor in its full glory, we´ve expanded it over the complete page so that you can concentrate on writing your post and enrich it with the images you like. With that change your are now able to switch between the veeeb editor and the standard editors back and forth, without having to relead the veeeb editor like before.

Thats it for the week.

Cheers

This week we´ve added two new plugins. Both to search Google. One lets you search through Google News and the other one delivers the same results as the Google web search.

To fully utilize these two new plugins we´ve included a new feature into the editor. It is now possible to convert a selected word into a hyperlink. Kind of like in the WordPress editor. Plus you can drag&drop your found results from the Google plugins directly into your text. So no more copy&paste a link from your browsers adressline into the text.

You can of course edit your links afterwards. To do so, position the cursor over a link that you want to edit and click the button “Create/Edit Link” displayed under the link.

The following window lets you enter your link destination, set the open method and test out your link.

As always you can grab the plugin from the wordpress page or you can use the update function in the “Plugins” section of your blog.

Exciting news from the veeeb editor.

We have updated the WordPress plugin and added the ability to search the media library from your blog! This makes it incredibly easy to add your own images to the text you are writing.

Just click the WordPress logo in the veeebeditor to activate it, if it isn´t already. Now you can search your library and simply drag the images into your text. Super fast and easy, right?

To get the latest version, go to our plugin page and download the new version, or if you have already installed the veeebeditor you can update it directly in your blog.

We are happy to announce, that the first public version of the veeebeditor wordpress plugin is now ready to download and install.

The veeeb wordpress plugin analyzes your text while writing and helps you search for related content in different channels like google images, flickr, youtube and gettyimages (more to come) You can add pictures and videos with a simple drag and drop into your text.
You do not have to look up the relevant keywords in your text. They are found for you. By just clicking you search for related content in different channels. With veeeb you save a lot of time while writing your article.

Learn more about veeeb.
Download it here at wordpress.org

Here a little overview:

1. Easy Handling – integrated in your blog as a tab next to the classic editors “visual” and “html”

Integrated in your wordpress blog as tab

2. concept extractor: veeeb learns about your text via opencalais

.

opencalais extracts the most valuable concepts

3. information wizard: get more information about you concepts via freebase

information about everything via freebase

4. one click search : search for images and videos via plugged in channels

search for related images and media

5. drag&drop media : drag and drop them into your article

drag and drop media into your article

…and there it is:

a article enriched with related media via veeeb

Have fun!

Today we integrated the a veeeb.uservoice forum, which allows you to add new feature wishes and suggestions.

Just click on “veeebback” to get there.

This will help us to get a impression about what you think of veeeb. Its pretty easy to use. Just type in your suggestion and we will get to it.

And its good for you anyway, because you can keep track of your suggestion. And you see if others like it too – everybody can vote for suggestions they like.

Just try it!