Sentiment analysis

An application that involves use of real-time sentiment analysis technology was recently announced by Fast Search & Transfer (FAST). Associated New Media (ANM) is using the site search and sentiment analysis features of FAST Enterprise Search Platform for its online travel site in the United Kingdom, ThisisTravel. Sentiment analysis involves the ability to analyze automatically the sentiment, attitude and opinion of anything on the World Wide Web—whether it's positive, negative or neutral, according to FAST.

To enhance the user experience on its site, ANM wanted a search solution that would provide results with high relevance, and one that could crawl numerous travel sites and extract specific information on thousands of properties, then add that to the search experience. The company wanted to add value to more than 130,000 independent hotel reviews by automatically analyzing the sentiment of each review.

With the new system, ThisisTravel users have the ability to view a numeric sentiment analysis of hotels based on a large number of reviews written by travelers who have visited those properties. By viewing sentiment in past reviews based on a scale of 1-10, users are said to be able to make faster and better decisions.

"The guided navigation and sentiment analysis capabilities found in the solution are enabling ThisisTravel to reach a new level of customer satisfaction," says Alex Saint, publisher of ThisisTravel. "Our customers now have instant access to thousands of hotel reviews from fellow travelers, aggregated from many different sources, providing them with the insight they need to make well-informed travel decisions.