Suppose you want to go to a movie, or buy a new book, or perhaps a new digital camera. What would be your first step? Certainly, most of us would consult the internet for reviews about the specific product we want to buy. This is where things usually get complicated, because we are often swamped with hundreds or thousands of reviews, some of which are useless.

Now, Yissum Research Development Company Ltd., the technology transfer arm of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, presents a new technology especially suitable for ranking product reviews according to the particular needs of the person performing the search. This novel method for content analysis, invented by Professor Ari Rappoport and Mr. Oren Tsur from the Hebrew University's School of Computer Science and Engineering, is specifically designed to automatically rank book and product reviews according to their estimated helpfulness.

"This novel method has the potential of changing the way we extract information from the internet. It already allows us to easily identify the most helpful reviews on various topics, and, in the future, will actually generate one comprehensive, optimized review from the available data. It offers a necessary tool for coping with the vast amount of data in the web world," said Yaacov Michlin, CEO of Yissum. "This is one out of dozens of breakthrough technologies developed at the Hebrew University and available for licensing in the field of computer science."

The technology, RevRank, first identifies a core of dominant terms that defines a virtual optimal review, and then uses those terms to rank other reviews relative to the ‘virtual core’ review. The simplicity of RevRank enables easy understanding of the output and an effortless parameter configuration to match the personal preferences of different users. RevRank was successfully tested on book and product reviews on Amazon. As a result effective reviews that had a good chance of being missed by readers were moved up to top positions.

About Yissum

Yissum Research Development Company of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Ltd. was founded in 1964 to protect and commercialize the Hebrew University’s intellectual property. Ranked among the top technology transfer companies in the world, Yissum has registered over 6,100 patents covering 1,750 inventions; has licensed out 480 technologies and has spun-off 65 companies including, BriefCam, HumanEyes, Mobileye and ReadEasy. Yissum’s business partners span the globe and include companies such as IBM, Intel, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Monsanto, Novartis, Phillips, Roche, Sygenta, Teva Pharmaceuticals, Vilmorin and many more. For further information please visit www.yissum.co.il.