DM: PR: Carving into web-logs for business intelligence

[Joe Evans]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Joe Evans
Tel: 01256 355 899
Email: joee@isl.co.uk

Carving into web-logs for business intelligence

6th July 1998

ISL's Clementine Data Mining System is to be used as the basis for a 
new
tool to analyse web-log data, aiming to revolutionise Internet 
commerce.

The tool, which will be developed as part of the MIMIC project (Mining
the Internet for Marketing Intelligence), will be a web-enabled data
mining system, customised to deal with web-log data.
MIMIC is a new collaborative venture between Clementine suppliers ISL,
the University of Ulster, and web-site providers Adnet from Dublin
(Ireland), and At Internet from Bordeaux (France).
"We want to bring the subtlety and power of modern marketing 
technology
into the exciting new domain of the World Wide Web," says Maurice
Mulvenna of the University of Ulster.
To supplement the data mining functionality already available in
Clementine, new facilities for automatically decoding web-log data 
will
be developed.
The new tool will also be web-enabled, allowing long-distance data
mining via an Internet browser.
The route a user takes when browsing a web-site is logged and stored.
Increasingly, users can also be tracked over repeated visits via
Internet cookies.
By analysing this information with data mining techniques, it is hoped
that hosts will be able to improve the design and functionality of 
their
web sites.
"To date, we don't have a very adequate data model for web-log
information," said Alan Montgomery of ISL. "With MIMIC, one of the 
most
important objectives is to discover the kind of information that is
available, and what it can tell us about how web-sites are used."
"MIMIC will open us the way to one to one marketing," said Louis 
Moussy
of At Internet.

BACKGROUND

At Internet
At Internet was founded in January 96 and registered in Bordeaux,
France. As an ISP, Electronic Commerce became prominent in its
activities. Its malls include more than 50 first ranked "chateaux", 
and
many gourmet products vendors. At Internet is in the leading team of 
the
most visited French servers. Trust is of paramount importance in the 
EC
domain, inclining At Internet to present the most adapted products to
client profiles.

The University of Ulster
The University of Ulster employs over 2500 staff and has 20,000 FTE
students, studying at the four campuses of the University in Magee
College (Derry), Jordanstown (Belfast) Coleraine and the Art College 
in
Belfast. The University will soon have a fifth campus, at Springvale 
in
West Belfast. Researchers in NIKEL, part of the University's Faculty 
of
Informatics, will carry out research work to enable the Internet
specific features, and to develop new algorithms.

ADNet
After all the early confusion about the Internet and the right sort of
Web site design, it's now possible to talk to the people with a proven
track record as Ireland's best consultants and production team. 
Internet
Agency of the Year for 1997, and an ever increasing list of satisfied
clients with Web sites that are doing the business - drawing traffic 
(a
LOT of traffic), selling products, promoting services and winning
awards.

Integral Solutions Ltd
ISL is a specialist data-mining company based in the UK, developing 
and
supplying the Clementine(tm) Data Mining System. Clementine is
acknowledged by users and analysts worldwide as the premier 
interactive
data mining toolkit. (Intelligent System Strategies, Gartner, Two 
Crows,
Ovum).
Formed in 1989, ISL began as a management buy-out of the AI Products
Divisions from SD-SCICON (later to become EDS). From 1990 onwards, ISL
staff worked on many different data mining projects for customers.
In 1992, ISL's Colin Shearer initiated Project Clementine, aiming to
deliver an integrated data mining system, accessible to data owners. 
The
first commercial release came in 1994, and Clementine Version 5.0 is 
due
in Autumn 1998.
ISL now has 550 customers in 38 countries, including Reuters, 
Unilever,
Singapore Telecoms and the BBC. ISL Decision Systems Inc., based near
Philadelphia, was opened in 1996.
ISL is a full service company, supplying world class consultancy and
training to support Clementine, and is maintaining its status as the
world's leading interactive data-mining supplier.

Data Mining and Clementine
Business people tend to develop an intuitive feel for their line of
work, based on their experience. Data mining allows this kind of
learning from experience to be done computationally, meaning that
hunches can be investigated much more efficiently, directly on the
evidence of the information available.
Although it incorporates statistics, data visualisation and machine
intelligence, data mining is essentially a human process. By looking 
at
the patterns and trends, and building models of features in the data,
data miners can get to know the detail of their business, quickly and
accurately. Yet until recently, serious data analysis was only
accessible to technical and statistical experts.
The Clementine Data Mining System enables business users to mine their
own data. By allowing the people who need the answers to find them, 
ISL
has found that data mining becomes more efficient, more creative and
more profitable.
For further information please contact Joe Evans on (01256) 355899 or
joee@isl.co.uk

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