Bloomfire Taps IBM Watson to Enhance Searchability
Automated tagging of posts will improve searchability and overall value of content across social knowledge networks

AUSTIN, Texas—Sept. 24, 2015 --Bloomfire today announced a partnership with IBM to integrate its Watson cognitive computing system’s natural language processing technology with Bloomfire’s social knowledge network software. Using Watson’s advanced data insights APIs, Bloomfire customers can now automatically tag content to significantly improve users’ ability to search and find information.

Tagging online content with relevant keywords provides corporate knowledge repositories with critical data that makes searching for information much more effective. Most users of these types of systems neglect to tag their posts and most knowledge management systems lack the functionality to proactively suggest tags, limiting search capabilities. In fact, Bloomfire’s own research suggests that properly tagged content is over 50 percent more searchable than non-tagged content. This integration will help solve that problem by suggesting keywords and phrases that are related to the content being added.

IBM Watson enables organizations to quickly use natural language processing capabilities and data exploration to discover valuable information in both structured and unstructured data. When a Bloomfire customer uploads content or a blog post, Watson immediately identifies contextually relevant keywords and phrases for tagging. It then displays those words and phrases to ensure they are appropriate, and the user can modify the tags or simply accept them. With this sophisticated tagging process in place, users are able to search in natural language and instantly retrieve relevant content, expertly culled from a variety of internal data sources.

Bloomfire has a diverse customer base that will benefit from this new functionality, including Whole Foods, Dun & Bradstreet and Etsy, among others.

“IBM is a pioneer in cognitive computing. By using Watson, we are creating new opportunities to extract a deeper level of information from enterprise applications,” said Trey Tramonte, president and CEO of Bloomfire. “At Bloomfire, we’ve always taken pride in helping customers organize and share their employees’ knowledge and expertise in an effective and intuitive way. Incorporating Watson’s natural language processing capabilities is a key differentiator for Bloomfire, greatly enhancing users’ ability to locate the exact content they need when they need it.”

About Bloomfire
Bloomfire exists to organize knowledge and expertise, and make it accessible and shareable with the people that need it most. Our easy-to-use, elegant social knowledge network software is used by thousands of employees at leading companies for social learning, customer service, and sales and marketing alignment. With Bloomfire, collaboration is easier, work gets done more efficiently, and employees and customers are more satisfied. Bloomfire is headquartered in downtown Austin, Texas. Request a demo today at https://bloomfire.com/.

Bloomfire is a trademark of Bloomfire, Inc. Other names mentioned herein are recognized to be the property of their respective owners. All rights reserved.

IBM Watson: Pioneering a New Era of Computing
Watson is the first open cognitive computing technology platform and represents a new era in computing where systems understand the world in the way that humans do: through senses, learning, and experience. Watson continuously learns, gaining in value and knowledge over time, from previous interactions. With the help of Watson, organizations are harnessing the power of cognitive computing to transform industries, help professionals do their jobs better, and solve important challenges.

To advance Watson, IBM has two dedicated business units: Watson, established for the development of cloud-delivered cognitive computing technologies that represent the commercialization of "artificial intelligence" or "AI" across a variety of industries, and Watson Health, dedicated to improving the ability of doctors, researchers and insurers and other related health organizations to surface new insights from data to and deliver personalized healthcare.

For more information on IBM Watson, visit: ibm.com/Watson and ibm.com/press/watson.

For more information on the Watson Developer Cloud, visit:http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/ibmwatson/developercloud/.

Join the conversation at #ibmwatson. Follow Watson on Facebook and see Watson on YouTube and Flickr.