Linkify: Enhanced Reading Experience by Augmenting Text Using Linked Open Data

We frequently encounter unfamiliar entity names (e.g., a person’s name or a geographic location) while reading texts such as newspapers, magazines, and web pages. When it occurs, we typically perform a sequence of wearisome actions: select the entity name, submit it to a search engine, and typically obtain detailed information from web sites. In this paper, we propose Linkify, a novel tool that enhances text reading by automatically converting entity names into links and displaying a synopsis of the entity retrieved from Linked Open Data when a user selects the link. The tool enables users to retrieve the information of the entity simply by selecting the link. Further, in order to create only links that are helpful for users, we also developed a method that evaluates the helpfulness of entities using a machine-learning algorithm with a broad set of features. We have implemented our proposed tool as an add-on for several major web browsers and made it publicly available at http://swc14.linkify.mobi.