May 18, 2000

Soliloquy Unveils Next Generation of Online Shopping Technology

Provides Enhanced Shopping Experience Using Natural Language Understanding

Soliloquy, Inc., a New York-based e-commerce infrastructure company, is today hosting a launch event to unveil Version 2.0 of Notebook Expert, with latest release of Soliloquy's core technology. Soliloquy's products humanize e-commerce allowing shoppers to hold intelligent two-way conversations with web sites using their own words. Their natural language understanding (NLU) technology provides the feeling of chatting with a real person — but much smarter. The unveiling occurred at the Bloom Ballroom (48 W. 21st Street) for key media, industry analysts, Internet executives and Soliloquy's staff of over 60 linguists, engineers, marketing and development staff, including 14 Ph.D.s.

"We allow shoppers to interact with an expert salesperson every time they shop. The online shopping experience is greatly enhanced so browsers are much more likely to click the Buy button," said Catherine Winchester, President & CEO of Soliloquy.

"That's why shoppers love us, and online merchants do too, because we increase their sales and decrease their costs," Winchester continued. "Furthermore our Dialogue Mining provides unprecedented insights into shopper psychology because buyers ask for what they want in their own words, rather than clicking around hoping to find what they want — and leaving the site if they don't find it. With our Experts, if someone does abandon a site without buying, at least now we know why."

For example, if a shopper says, "I want a purple laptop with a 16" screen that is lightweight and cost under $2,000," the Notebook Expert may respond, "The closest model we have costs $2,750 and has a 13" screen." If the shopper subsequently abandons the web site, the merchant will at least understand why he left, and have the chance to improve his product offerings.

Soliloquy's product lineup includes Desktop Expert™, Printer Expert™, Car Expert™, MutualFund Expert™, and House Expert™. Customers and partners include Hewlett-Packard, Acer, CNet Data Services, My Simon, Net Perceptions, RU4, iMediation, and Linkshare, as well as other major customers, who have not yet been announced. Soliloquy launched Version 1.0 of Notebook Expert in December 1999, and first went live on Acer's web site in February.

About Soliloquy

Founded by Catherine Winchester in mid-1997 in New York, Soliloquy is at the forefront of the next generation of web infrastructure technology. Soliloquy creates natural language interfaces that humanize e-commerce by making the online shopping experience conversational and interactive. Soliloquy's natural language products allow shoppers to hold intelligent two-way dialogues with web sites by typing (or speaking) using their own words. Communicating with Soliloquy's Experts feels like chatting with a live person — except that the Experts have a total knowledge of all products and are available 24/7 at a fraction of the cost.