FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 
Contact: Mary Kroening       
+1-828-350-0350

Provide Product Recommendations,
Site Guidance, Diagnostic Services
and other Expert Advice
with WebLS 1.5

September 20, 1996 - Stow, MA--Version 1.5 of WebLS, Amzi!'s freeware tool for adding server-side expert advisors to Web pages, is now available for downloading. The new version includes enhanced control over generated HTML, allowing a wider variety of formats for gathering and presenting information, and support for multiple goals and answers in the rule-base, providing greater flexibility in the types of problems WebLS can be used to solve.

WebLS 1.5 is ideally suited for interacting with Web site visitors, carrying on a dialog with them, and providing recommendations based on their inputs. The recommendations might be solutions to technical support problems, pointers to and explanations about areas of interest on a complex Web site, products that best suit a prospect's needs and budget, answers to questions about company benefits and policies, or advice in solving a home, business or recreation problem.

Technical support, site guides and product advisor applications all have direct benefits for both the visitor and maintainer of a site. Other types of advisors can have an indirect benefit for a web site by adding value to a site that draws more visitors. For example, a lawn products company might include an advisor that diagnoses lawn problems, a plumbing supply company can dispense advise on leaky faucets, and a job placement agency can provide career advice.

How Does WebLS Work?

WebLS is a server-side tool that lets you embed rule-based advisors and problem solvers in Web pages. It dynamically generates HTML forms and documents for gathering and presenting information. Since Web documents are used for both the questions and the answers, a full range of multimedia capabilities can be used including pictures, videos, sounds and animation. The answers can also include pointers to any information available on the Internet or company intranet.

WebLS works by letting you write simple 'rules of thumb' that match visitors interests or problem symptoms with relevant answers, advice or resources. A Web visitor answers a few questions on an HTML form. The rules are applied to the responses entered by the visitor, and forms containing additional questions are dynamically generated. This process continues until all the information has been gathered or the problem has been diagnosed. Finally the rules are used to dynamically generate and display a Web document containing recommendations or solutions.

Developing WebLS Applications

All you need to develop WebLS applications is a text editor, and a web server and browser. WebLS has built-in error handling and trace facilities. In debug mode, each time WebLS emits a set of questions or answers there is a button at the bottom of the page pointing to a full trace showing how the rules were executed. Also any errors are reported to you in the browser.

WebLS is a CGI application that runs on web servers for Windows NT, 95 and BSDI Unix on a Pentium. A Solaris version is forthcoming. It can use either the standard CGI interface or the Windows CGI interface.

Freeware!

WebLS is available for downloading from Amzi!'s website, http://www.amzi.com. You can also try out Amzi!'s Site Advisor there. A commercial version is planned, although the freeware version will continue to be enhanced and maintained.

Future Plans

The 1.5 release of WebLS is primarily intended for webmasters and software developers. However, Amzi! will be releasing a full GUI editor written in Java for building and maintaining WebLS applications, so that people from a wide range of backgrounds will be able to simply fill out the forms to specify their questions, rules and answers.

The Web form at above is used to gather some information about the visitor's interests. After answering these questions (plus a handful more), the Web form below recommends appropriate site resources.

* WebLS is pronounced "webbles"
Amzi, Logic Server and WebLS are trademarks of Amzi! inc.
 

Amzi! inc.
  47 Redwood Road
  Asheville, NC 28804 U.S.A.
+1-828-350-0350
www.amzi.com