NEW YORK, June 5 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Dow Jones & Company today introduced Synaptica 6.4 -- its latest semantic Web-enabled knowledge organization system for the enterprise. Synaptica 6.4 simplifies and standardizes vocabulary and metadata management in order to unlock valuable business intelligence.

Synaptica 6.4 allows subject matter experts, taxonomists, content managers, Web developers and IT professionals to collaborate and create structured vocabularies including taxonomies, thesauri and ontologies. These vocabularies can be deployed for search enhancement, machine-aided indexing and metadata tagging, as well as in content management systems and Web portals. Using unique audience-centric management capabilities and standardized, semantic Web-enabled tools that encode in formation in a way that allows machines to understand the meaning, Synaptica 6.4 can enhance information access, improve workflow and optimize data quality.

"Computers can store, search and display enormous amounts of information, but until recently machines have not been able to understand the meaning of the content," said Dave Clarke, global taxonomy director, Dow Jones. "Now, with the semantic Web being able to capture the meaning in a machine-readable way, users can discover latent information and make new connections between isolated content while benefiting from comprehensive and precise information recall."

Synaptica 6.4 offers many new, customer-requested enhancements such as: -- Semantic Web-enabled: In addition to encoding information in such a way that machines can 'understand' the meaning on the page, the Semantic Web also presents the text and graphics. This next-generation technology will promote conceptual search and the cross-searchability of data drawn together from diverse sources. Taxonomies are the key to semantic encoding and Synaptica supports the latest Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C) standards - RDF SKOS and OWL." -- Audience-centric views: Because enterprises may have many internal and external audiences, one-size-fits-all taxonomies often fail to meet the different needs of these segmented audiences. Synaptica's unique and innovative Audience-Centric Taxonomy feature allows the taxonomy to present itself differently for each defined user community. -- Governance tools: Governance is facilitated by delivering the right information to the right stakeholders at the right time. A new suite of tools can automatically disseminate critical governance reports, such as candidate term or hierarchy changes, to need-to-know users such as subject matter experts, content managers and taxonomists. Synaptica's extensive permissions layer provides companies with the ability to decide who can suggest, define, add or deactivate terms, change hierarchies and create scope notes. -- Web services-enabled: Synaptica's Web services API layer provides access to system functionality and enables full integration with external applications, supporting term and relationship searching, browsing and editing for an improved user experience. -- Performance-tuned interface: New Web technologies such as AJAX have been employed to de-clutter screens, improve workflow, speed the editorial process and reduce training time.

Dow Jones's Client Solutions group provides a wide variety of organizations with taxonomy management software solutions including Synaptica 6.4. The group's highly scalable team of taxonomy experts can provide strategic advice on taxonomy development and expert assistance with content integration. Consultants work with clients on a modular basis in the key project phases of assessment, design, delivery, adoption and maintenance.

For more information about Synaptica 6.4, visit http://www.factiva.com/products/taxonomy/synaptica, or to learn more about our services, visit http://www.dowjones.com/clientsolutions.

About Dow Jones

Dow Jones & Company (NYSE: DJ; dowjones.com) is a leading provider of global business news and information services. Its Consumer Media Group publishes The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, MarketWatch and the Far Eastern Economic Review. Its Enterprise Media Group includes Dow Jones Newswires, Factiva, Dow Jones Client Solutions, Dow Jones Indexes and Dow Jones Financial Information Services. Its Local Media Group operates community-based information franchises. Dow Jones provides news content to CNBC and radio stations in the U.S.

CONTACT: Shannon Sullivan, Public Relations Manager of Dow Jones,
Americas & APAC, +1-609-627-2312, shannon.sullivan@dowjones.com; Melanie
Surplice, Public Relations Manager of Dow Jones, UKI, CEMA, +44-207-542 8837,
melanie.surplice@dowjones.com

Web site: http://www.dowjones.com/