The Service-Finder project started in January 2008 and successfully ended in December 2009.

The main aims of this project were:

• Create a Semantic Search Engine for Web Services
  • Aggregates information from heterogeneous sources: WSDL, wikis, blogs and also users’ feedbacks and behaviour
• Create a Web Service Crawler to identify Web Services and their relevant information
• Automatically generate Semantic Service Descriptions by analyzing heterogeneous sources
• Allow efficient and effective search of collected and generated data
• Provide a Web 2.0 portal
  • To support users in searching and browsing for Web Services
  • To give recommendations to users
  • To track user behaviour for improving accuracy of service search and user recommendations

The Service-Finder Beta release is online at: http://demo.service-finder.eu

After a two-year period, we proudly announce our achievements:

• We assessed requirements with the user group and we targeted the development accordingly
• We capitalized on Web 2.0 approach (i.e., data flow back from the portal to the automatic annotator)
  • Service categorization was improved by applying ML to user tags
  • Access to related services was enhanced by integrating an innovative recommendation engine
• We can pulse the Web of Services
  • Only in the last year
    • 20% of the endpoints in our repository were discontinued and
    • 23% of the endpoints in our repository were found
• We proudly announced that
  • We maintain the largest and most updated Web Service repository
  • We offer one of the first large RDFa enhanced portal
  • We support Open-Search
  • We provide UDDI Inquiry interface and UDDI crawler
• All components and Service-Finder as a whole were evaluated
• Exploitation of results while project running
  • In 2009 ontoprise optimized OntoBroker based on the feedbacks gained in Service Finder
  • CEFRIEL enhanced its training material for Web as a platform seminar and Web Evolution course
  • Seekda developed the product line on focus crawling
  • USFD enhanced batch processing for handling large dataset in GATE

The expected impact of Service-Finder does not end here:

• Service-Finder can bring service discovery to everybody
  • Publishers increase their productivity, by being able to provide complex services without the need to register them explicitly.
  • Creators become able to design more communicative forms of content by integrating third party services.
  • Creators become able to design more communicative forms of content by integrating third party services.
• Service-Finder can also be applied within organizations
  • Number of Services increases in organizations
  • As within internet repositories in big companies can be quickly outdated
  • IT Managers like minimally invasive technology