1. A network based interactive speech system adapted for responding to speech-based queries concerning a set of topic entries, the system comprising: a speech recognition engine adapted to generate recognized speech utterance data from speech data associated with a speech-based query from a speaker concerning one of the set of topic entries; a first routine executing on a server system and adapted to perform natural language processing on said recognized speech utterance data to identify a selected set of phrases related to the set of topic entries; a second routine executing on the server system and adapted to convert said selected set of phrases from the first routine into a search query suitable for identifying a first group of one or more topic entries corresponding to said speech-based query; wherein words and/or phrases in said search query can be assigned different weightings determined by said first routine from said recognized speech utterance data; and a third routine executing on the server system adapted to evaluate said first group of one or more topic entries and to identify a single topic entry responsive to said speech-based query; wherein third routine can consider words and/or phrases in said search query which are not in said set of topic entries; and wherein information corresponding to a single topic entry taken from said first group can be determined and presented in real-time by the interactive speech system automatically as a response best matching said speech-based query.