Re: 11/6/00 - Globe and Mail: TSE tests chat room e-watchdog Technology from MindfulEye keeps track of conversations about public companies
TSE tests chat room e-watchdog
Technology from MindfulEye keeps track
of conversations about public companies
WENDY STUECK
Monday, November 6, 2000
VANCOUVER -- The Toronto Stock Exchange is testing technology that trolls through Internet chat rooms and bulletin boards for mentions of public companies, and rates conversations according to their "mood."
The artificial intelligence technology comes from Vancouver-based MindfulEye Inc., a startup that trades on the Nasdaq Stock Market's over-the-counter bulletin board in the United States.
Robert Cook, director of market surveillance at the TSE, said MindfulEye offered to let the exchange try the software for free.
In return, the TSE will provide suggestions on how to adapt the software to serve the unique purposes of the exchange. In its current form, the software is designed for an individual or company to monitor chat room conversations on one or a small number of stocks.
The TSE needs to monitor hundreds of stocks at a time to attempt to spot stock scams or other problems.
While the TSE has software that automates searches of other parts of the Internet, it doesn't have anything yet that effectively looks at real-time chat rooms, Mr. Cook said. Currently, the TSE has to have staff randomly look at chat rooms, and that's not very efficient.
TSE employees expect to complete their review of the software in a few months. MindfulEye has a similar arrangment under way with the Canadian Venture Exchange.
The development deals are part of MindfulEye's plan to commercialize its surveillance service, the idea for which grew out of conversations about how on-line rumours can affect public companies.
The company's founders include president Ray Torresan, who has worked in investor relations for clients including mining promoter and financier Robert Friedland, and Vancouver-based futurist and consultant Tod Maffin.
MindfulEye co-founder and chief technology officer Todd Cusolle said his company's technology allows users to set parameters so, for example, they will receive alerts when there's a sudden surge in the number of conversations about a certain stock.
Users could also decide to receive alerts based on the system's mood scale, which runs from a minus-4 for the most negative mentions to a plus-4 for bullish sentiments.
"You can set parameters that are simple or complex," Mr. Cusolle said.
He said the system is also designed to be able to recover and recreate chat-room conversations, a feature that the company hopes will appeal to securities regulators.
MindfulEye hopes to sell its service through distributors. It has reached a distribution deal with Canada NewsWire, which is expected to offer the technology to its customers once it is commercially available.
Currently, users of the MindfulEye system receive e-mail alerts, but the company has plans to make the system available on wireless devices such as personal digital assistants.
Although there has been considerable discussion about privacy on the Internet, Mr. Cusolle does not see anything sinister about MindfulEye's snooping ability, noting that the technology ventures only into public forums.
"If you go into a public forum and post something for anyone in the world to see, it shouldn't surprise you that someone might notice it, and if there's something illegal or interesting about [the post], to forward it to someone else," he said. "All we're really doing is automating the process."
Mr. Cusolle said one of the biggest challenges for MindfulEye is building a system that can keep up with growing traffic. Currently, he said, the system checks in on at least 70,000 different forums, and that number is expected to grow.
globetechnology.com |
