HERE'S PROOF

A simple typo can compromise a good publication's credibility, but most spell checks on computers can't possibly tell an editor how to spell the name of a local road or government official. Tansa Systems, a Norwegian-based text-proofing company with a Lakewood Ranch office that includes two employees, offers that capability.

"If you misspell the city councilman's name, that's an embarrassing error," says Robert Laszlo, director of operations for Tansa, which lists The Chronicle of Higher Education and the Toronto Star as clients.

Laszlo cites the formatting issues posed by a street like Fruitville. Tansa knows immediately the official name is Fruitville Road and not avenue, street or boulevard. "With Tansa," he says, "the editing process really becomes more efficient, and the editors don't have to focus on correcting dumb mistakes like Fruitville Road."

Tansa also has the potential to become more useful over time as the client or user adds new terms and Tansa consultants examine the log files of a client's server to update the dictionary. A fresh news cycle, after all, means a new set of proper nouns and spelling pitfalls.

Tansa can also process strings of 10 words at a time, enabling it to review not only single words but entire phrases, determine the aptitude of a given spelling in context, and even sharpen word choice.

CLICK AND RECEIVE

For a company with a limited or new Web presence, getting attention online can be a challenge. Hence the popularity of paid listings, which give Web sites more control over their visibility than free listings.

Pay-per-click advertising in particular has become extremely popular, according to John Barron of the Sarasota-based Internet marketing company Barron Productions. "It's a great small-company solution," says Barron. "Pay-per-click still tends to be relatively inexpensive."

Barron helps clients establish pay-per-click campaigns, a process that involves generating a list of key words and bidding on their use. Depending on the search engine and the words, a reasonable price might be something like $1.50 per click, according to Barron. The companies Barron works with refine a list of about 50 to 75 words.

Besides being relatively inexpensive, pay-per-click campaigns allow companies to maintain a more stable Web presence than do free listings. They also permit bidders to track the impression rate, or the number of times someone clicks on your site versus the total number of times your site pops up.

Customers, says Barron, "are going less to the phone book, and more and more to the search engines to find what they're looking for." And he points out that Yellow Pages ads lack the flexibility of pay-per-click campaigns. "Whether or not someone calls, you pay for it."

GENE PHARM

While humans share 99.9 percent of genetic material in common, that 0.1 percent of the genome distinguishes each of us according to uniquely individual traits. One such trait is how we respond to medicines. Sarasota-based DNAPrint Genomics-one of the few pioneering pharmacogenomic companies in the nation-is collaborating with the Moffitt Cancer Center to develop tests that predict the effectiveness of select chemotherapies in individuals according to their genetic material.

"Sometimes chemotherapy patients suffer needlessly because they're just genetically incompatible with the drugs," says DNAPrint's Tony Frudakis. "But they take them anyway because right now we're dealing with a one-pill-fits-all mentality."

The company's Xeleri/Xelox project highlights the importance of this research. Though FDA-approved for treating colon cancer, Xelox and Xeleri fail in 50 percent of cases, and for patients who do not respond, the prognosis is poor. "Most chemotherapies have a low rate of effectiveness," says Frudakis. "It's not understood exactly why they fail. We've identified genetic markers that predict failure, not perfectly, but fairly well."

Despite the FDA's support for the "personalization" of medicine, says Frudakis, two main forces are frustrating that effort: the pharmaceutical companies that develop and promote low-risk drugs at the expense of drugs that might be highly effective in a specific population; and the market, which is in something of "an anti-technology mode," says Frudakis. Pharmacogenomics companies are not highly rated investments yet, he adds.

Frudakis believes consumers will force changes. "Eventually the market will leap towards consumers demanding better performance of medication."