Extensible system and method for information extraction in a data processing system

A method of performing data mashup including information extraction capabilities, comprising:

• receiving multiple streams of textual data, wherein at least one stream of textual data contains unstructured textual data;
• storing in a repository annotators describing how to analyze the multiple streams of textual data for unstructured data components that are identified by information contained in the annotators;
• receiving an annotate request to apply a specified set of annotators from the stored annotators to the unstructured textual data;
• applying the specified set of annotators to the unstructured textual data to identify and extract a plurality of unstructured data components according to the specified set of annotators, wherein the plurality of unstructured data components are contained in the unstructured textual data;
• tagging the extracted, unstructured data components to generate tagged, structured data components;
• for each portion of the unstructured textual data corresponding to at least one tagged, structured data component of the generated tagged, structured data components, adding the at least one tagged, structured data component to that portion of the unstructured textual data;
• and
• combining the multiple streams of textual data, including the at least one stream of textual data having the generated tagged, structured data components, to form a mashup output data stream.