Simpli was an early search engine that offered

word-sense disambiguation Word-sense disambiguation (WSD) is the process of identifying which sense of a word is meant in a sentence or other segment of context. In human language processing and cognition, it is usually subconscious/automatic but can often come to consc ...

to search terms. A user could enter in a search term that was ambiguous (e.g., Java) and the search engine would return a list of alternatives (coffee, programming language, island in the South Seas). The

technology Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and Reproducibility, reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in me ...

was rooted in brain science and built by academics to model the way in which the mind stored and utilized language. The early technology was derived heavily from

WordNet WordNet is a lexical database of semantic relations between words in more than 200 languages. WordNet links words into semantic relations including synonyms, hyponyms, and meronyms. The synonyms are grouped into '' synsets'' with short defin ...

, which was invented by George A. Miller at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

. George Miller was an advisory Board member to Simpli. Simpli was founded by a number of graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and professors meeting in the Department of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences at Brown University. Graduate students included the CEO

Jeff Stibel Jeff Stibel is an entrepreneur, having started numerous technology and marketing companies, and a venture capital investor, as co-founder (with Kobe Bryant) of Bryant Stibel. At age 32, he became one of the youngest public company CEOs in Amer ...

, David Landan, and John Santini. Post-docs included Andrew Duchon and Paul Allopenna. Professors included James A. Anderson and Steve Reiss from Brown University,

Dan Ariely Dan Ariely ( he, דן אריאלי; born April 29, 1967) is an Israeli-American professor and author. He serves as a James B. Duke Professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University. Ariely is the founder of the research instit ...

from the

MIT Sloan School of Management The MIT Sloan School of Management (MIT Sloan or Sloan) is the business school of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT Sloan offers bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree programs, ...

and George Miller from Princeton. Simpli was sold in 2000 to

NetZero NetZero is an Internet service provider based in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California. It is a subsidiary of United Online, which in turn is a subsidiary of investment bank B. Riley Financial. United Online is also the parent of Juno Online ...

. Another company that leveraged the Simpli WordNet technology was purchased by

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

and they continue to use the technology for search and

advertising Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers. It is typically used to promote a ...

under the brand Google

AdSense Google AdSense is a program run by Google through which website publishers in the Google Network of content sites serve text, images, video, or interactive media advertisements that are targeted to the site content and audience. These advert ...

. In 2001, there was a

buyout In finance, a buyout is an investment transaction by which the ownership equity of a company, or a majority share of the stock of the company is acquired. The acquiror thereby "buys out" the present equity holders of the target company. A buyout ...

of the company and it was merged with another company called Search123. Most of the original members joined the new company. That company was later sold in 2004 to

ValueClick Bread Financial Holdings, Inc. is an American publicly traded provider of loyalty and marketing services, such as private label credit cards, coalition loyalty programs, and direct marketing, derived from the capture and analysis of transaction- ...

, which continues to use the technology and search engine to this day.{{Citation needed, date=July 2011

External links

Simpli.com, Inc. Announces Expansion of Senior Technical Staff and Management Team

References

Internet search engines

See also

External links

References