NTT Research and Development 2008 Review of Activities

With the increasing popularity of blogs, social networking services (SNSs) and other consumer-generated media (CGM), the amount of information on the Internet continues to expand. There is much information that cannot be found by search engines that use keywords, and given that needs vary from user to user, technology for efficient extraction of beneficial information is required.

The CaTaC^* communications platform is intended to improve the efficiency of metadata-based information search and aggregation and make the information on the Internet more effective by providing a mechanism with which the user can easily append metadata of their own to blog entries and other user-generated content.

The CaTaC platform can be used to construct diverse enterprise and consumer oriented applications, such as the blog-based survey and campaign service Blogoubo, which we tested in collaboration with the Koubo-Guide sha CORP. from March to April of 2007. Blogoubo handles responses to campaign questionnaires as metadata, thus gaining a word-of-mouth publicity effect for questionnaire survey and campaign information via blog entries. Other than Blogoubo, we have also confirmed the utility of CaTaC through the development of the BizLogue, blog-based information sharing system for use within offices and university organizations.

CaTaC is currently in the commercialization phase, and development centering on enterprise software applications and business solutions has begun. For the Blogoubo, too, commercial services began in February 2008 as new CGM marketing services that offer advantages to both consumers and corporate campaign sponsors.

• * CaTaC: Categorization and Tabulation for micro Contents

• Blogoubo is applying for a trademark registration of NTT IT Corporation.