Text Technologies » Lexalytics

Lexalytics has merged with part of Infonic

Curt Monash — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 19:59:01 +0000

As reported on the Lexalytics blog, sentiment analysis specialist Lexalytics has merged with the text analytics division of Infonic to form Lexalytics Limited. The deal seems to have a screwy financial structure — which Seth Grimes made a valiant effort to decipher (I think from vacation, poor guy) — as is common when companies much too small to be public wind up trading publicly anyway.

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If you think sentiment analysis technology can detect idiom, I have a bridge I’d like to sell you

Curt Monash — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 11:40:52 +0000

Text mining tools are just WONDERFUL at detecting idiom, sarcasm, and figurative speech … Yeah, right. I asked Lexalytics CEO Jeff Catlin whether his tool could do that kind of thing, and he looked at me like I’d just grown a third ear.

Actually, he didn’t. But just like every other sentiment analysis vendor I encountered at the Text Analytics Summit or spoke to beforehand, he made it clear that his tool could only handle straightforward, literal expressions of opinion. Idiom, irony, sarcasm, metaphor, et al. are beyond the current reach of the technology.

Aren’t you just thrilled that I shared that earth-shattering news with you?

Intro to Lexalytics

Curt Monash — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 04:49:28 +0000

I chatted with Lexalytics CEO Jeff Catlin at the Text Analytics Summit today. Lexalytics is a 14 person company, which represents a doubling over last year. Jeff thinks Lexalytics is on track this year to double again.

Lexalytics’ main business is OEMing sentiment extraction, e.g. to the many blog-analysis/reputation-management (i.e., Voice of the Market) companies that recently started up and in some cases have been bought by big market analysis firms. Lexalytics can and sometimes does extract the more basic stuff as well, but sentiment analysis is the heart of its business. A partial customer list can be found on the Lexalytics site. Lexalytics extracts in the English language only.

One feature Lexalytics is proud of is that it doesn’t just assess sentiment from a phrase; it also gives a confidence (“evidence”) weighting. In such a fuzzy area as sentiment, I think that’s a good idea.

Lexalytics has a demo site, PoliticalTrends.info. The links on the left show some of the charts and reports they offer. But the bar charts in the middle inadvertently show the limitations of an approach that overweights some kinds of linguistic analysis at the expense of others. As I write this, the top 5 “Breaking themes in the last 3 days” are

last week
court decision
web site
nuclear program
front page

I think that particular part of the app might work better if a little more restriction were placed on what is or isn’t counted as a “theme.”