SBIR Phase II: Semi-Automatically Constructing Wrappers to Access Internet-Based Information Sources

Fetch Technologies, El Segundo CA

Investigators

Abstract

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project focuses on developing technology for semi-automatically creating wrappers that extract data from semi-structured web pages. The key innovation is a bootstrapping method for wrapper generation, so that experience in wrapping previous sites can be automatically re-used to minimize the effort required to wrap new sites. The proposed technology will make it practical to create thousands of highly accurate wrappers almost completely automatically, creating new opportunities for web-based information integration. The proposed technology will enable Fetch Technologies to scale our current wrapper generation technology far beyond what his now practical. Thousands of Internet services create value for their users by aggregating and integrating information from Internet sources. The proposed technology will make these types of services radically simpler to implement. Applications include portal sites, comparison shopping services, auction sites, finance integration, and competitive intelligence-gathering services.