SOURCE: Crimson Hexagon

October 14, 2008 09:00 ET

Harvard University's Innovative Opinion Technology Licensed to Crimson Hexagon

New Technology Provides Accurate, Automated Opinion Analysis for Blogs, Communities, and Social Media

CAMBRIDGE, MA--(Marketwire - October 14, 2008) - Harvard University's Office of Technology Development has signed an exclusive license agreement with Crimson Hexagon, Inc. for technology that can quickly and accurately analyze and infer opinion from large quantities of unstructured text.

Crimson Hexagon will use the technology as the basis of its brand monitoring software which will track content on high-volume blogs and online communities. The Company will market its solution to large companies and organizations that want to track and analyze online conversations and opinions about their companies, products and markets. Gary King, Harvard's David Florence Professor of Government, and his team developed the technology at Harvard.

First generation brand monitoring services generally use technology to monitor and gather online information and determine ratios of positive and negative opinion, but then require human analysis to determine sentiment about a range of topics. With King's technology, Crimson Hexagon removes the element of subjective analysis and dramatically speeds and automates reporting on opinion across a wider range of topics.

Potential applications of this patent-pending technology include:

--  Analysis of reaction to new consumer technology products, such as
    mobile phones, to identify sentiment about pricing, features, and
    availability.
--  Insight into a company's customer support emails, to pinpoint primary
    issues, customer satisfaction trends, and emerging problems.
--  Government agency analysis of peacemaking efforts and evolving
    political and national security issues.
    

"Not so long ago, information was expensive. Today, with the Internet, information is free but meaning is expensive -- or at least difficult to find given the onslaught of information available," said King. "The technology we developed was designed especially for this problem of making sense of huge quantities of expressed opinion."

"While first generation brand monitoring technology typically reveals only ratios of positive and negative opinion, our technology allows users to define for themselves, based on their own business needs, the specific opinions they'd like to measure -- and get fast, accurate results," said Crimson Hexagon CEO Candace Fleming. "This level of scale and detail was never before available, and is in high demand by businesses looking to evaluate consumer opinion and make the most of their online investments."

"Professor King's important technology has dramatically leapfrogged the current brand monitoring solutions by quickly and easily quantifying and qualifying public opinion which is invaluable to a range of decision makers, researchers, and marketing professionals. While one might not associate social media and Web 2.0 technology with Harvard, this is but one example of a variety of timely research initiatives being advanced across our campus, benefiting society and researchers alike," said Isaac T. Kohlberg, Harvard University's Senior Associate Provost and Chief Technology Development Officer.

About Crimson Hexagon

Crimson Hexagon is the only brand monitoring solution that lets major corporations clearly see people's opinions about their products, services and markets online. Companies can use Crimson Hexagon to translate online conversations and opinion into meaningful insights about the issues that are important to their customers and prospects. Founded in 2007, Crimson Hexagon is headquartered in Cambridge, MA. For more information, contact Crimson Hexagon at +1 617 547 1072 or visit www.crimsonhexagon.com.

About Harvard University's Office of Technology Development

The Harvard Office of Technology Development (OTD) is responsible for all activities pertaining to the evaluation, patenting and licensing of new inventions and discoveries made at Harvard University and Harvard Medical School. OTD also serves to further the development of Harvard technologies through the establishment of sponsored research collaborations with industry. OTD's mission is to promote the public good by fostering innovation and translating new inventions made at Harvard into useful products available and beneficial to society.