Baseball Embraces SAS Analytics
October 20, 2011
Baseball as an institution is known for its love of numbers. Now it’s embracing analytics. KDNuggets reports more in, “Pittsburgh Pirates tap SAS Analytics.”
The article explains the use of statistics and analytics:
As ‘Moneyball’ has become a valued statistical approach to selecting talent, teams such as the Pittsburgh Pirates are also embracing analytics to improve operations and marketing and build stronger relationships with fans. Using SAS Visual Data Discovery, the Pirates surface a treasure trove of fan insights. The point-and-click interface gives quick entry to advanced analytics from SAS, the leader in business analytics.
The Pirates had previously used Microsoft Excel, but it’s widely known that the application of such flat data is challenging. SAS will now allow the club to analyze everything from attendance to marketing to statistics. Now to get back to that business of actually winning some games . . .
Keep in mind that SAS now has the Teragram text processing technology. You can put words with your numbers.
Emily Rae Aldridge, October 20, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Inteltrax: Top Stories, October 10 to October 14
October 17, 2011
Inteltrax, the data fusion and business intelligence information service, captured three key stories germane to search this week, specifically, how analytic technology depends so heavily on funding and what those dollars signify.
Our feature story this week, “Palantir Back From the Grave,” http://inteltrax.com/?p=2775 details how one BI company suffered some near-fatal blows, but has bounced back with new software and confidence, thanks to some new funding.
Another funding-centric tale was our story, “Opera and Xignite Make Waves by Raising Millions” http://inteltrax.com/?p=2573 that showed two smaller companies on the rise thanks to some big time investments.
We turned the tables with “Actuate Analytics Contest Gets Attention” http://inteltrax.com/?p=2541 to show how one company is supporting the next generation of analytic thinkers by offering their financial support.
Money makes the big data globe spin, it’s no secret. But funding carries a lot of meaning in this industry, usually it’s a sign of impending success. We’ll see if that theory holds true, as we follow these and other stories in the ever-expanding world of data analytics.
Follow the Inteltrax news stream by visiting
Patrick Roland, Editor, Inteltrax.
Google Wants More Cash – Enter Google Analytics Premium
October 13, 2011
So basically for a fee, Google will provide a stronger server to run your custom reports, a dedicated account manager and a 24/7 support and service level agreement (SLA). The one thing Google didn’t note in their announcement post was the cost for the premium analytics offering. I have received tips from several sources noting that the price for the premium analytics service is A WHOPPING $150,000/year.
Google Predicts Video Games’ Successes
October 11, 2011
An increase in searches for game titles on Google and YouTube signal an awareness of the titles and the desire to acquire them, providing insight into sales. Google analyzed search activity for title terms of the top 15 games of 2010 and 2009, such as “Call of Duty,” “Black Ops,” and “COD Black Ops,” on Google and YouTube. The average search activity per title in 2010 rose 24% on Google and 28% on YouTube, jumping 25% in overall search activity.
Inteltrax: Top Stories, October 3 to October 7
October 10, 2011
Inteltrax, the data fusion and business intelligence information service, captured three key stories germane to search this week, specifically, how analytic technology is helping the average worker beyond the IT department.
Those in the auto sales industry were boosted by the news found in “Kelly Blue Book Learns the Real Value of Analytics” http://inteltrax.com/?p=2514 which showed how the venerable bible of automotive value is getting more accurate with its big data software.
The up and down world of high fashion looks a little more balanced after reading “Microstrategy and Tukatech Forge Fashion Business Intelligence” http://inteltrax.com/?p=2496which showcases how runway walkers and designers are embracing this technology.
Newspapers, too, are getting into the act, trimming already tight budgets, according to “Reporters Digging Deeper with Big Data” http://inteltrax.com/?p=2507 with research analytics, but also possibly ruining the institution of journalism by using data analytics to compose stories.
Big data analytics is trickling down to the everyday workforce. Whether selling a car or picking next season’s fashion trend, these tools are becoming indispensible. However, it’ll never replace a trained reporter’s eye. Expect us to watch the workplace dynamics shift with these new tools.
Follow the Inteltrax news stream by visiting http://www.inteltrax.com/
Patrick Roland, Editor, Inteltrax October 10, 2011
Thetus Talks UX Over Beer
October 7, 2011
A press release from Thetus, “Have A Beer, Talk UX/UI,” invites anyone in
Silicon Forest of the Pacific Northwest to talk shop over a beer. Advertising for what they hope will be a reoccurring event, Thetus has decided to host a user group called PDX-UX.
Details for the inaugural meeting are as follows:
Our presenters are: Dino Citraro from Periscopic, demoing a project that will be released in November for The Economist, Paul Wagner, demoing Forkfly 4.0, Brian Reavis, demoing Seamless Studio, Object Prism’s Jim Klein, talking usage analytics and customer engagement optimization tools available for designers, and Kelly White, demoing a Windows 8 Tablet.
It’s an interesting marketing tool to say the least. The offer of beer is likely enough to draw a crowd. Sorry, we don’t drink and we are not sure beer and search are a felicitous combination. But if you find yourself in Portland, head to Thetus headquarters – hey, free beer.
Emily Rae Aldridge, October 07, 2011
Text Analytics Summit Freight Train Arrives in November 2011
October 5, 2011
We wanted to remind you that the Text Analytics Summit West is November 10th and 11th in San Jose, California. The conference venue is the Convention Plaza Hotel. Among the speakers are:
- Tom H. C. Anderson, Managing Partner of Anderson Analytics
- Cliff Figallo, Senior Site Curator and Editor at Smart Data Collective and Social Media Today
- Vincent Granville, Chief Architect, Executive Director of AnalyticBridge and many other analytics visionaries and practitioners.
You can read an informative transcript of a discussion among these three experts at http://www.textanalyticsnews.com/text-mining-conference-west/summit-news.shtml.
The conference program is available on the Text Analytics News Web site. The conference offers special student discounts.
Stephen E Arnold, October 5, 2011
Sponsored by Text Analytics News
Digital Reasoning and Entity Based Analytics
October 5, 2011
As the entity-based analytics discipline becomes more prominent in the business sector, private company Digital Reasoning has already made great strides in setting the standard for achieving actionable intelligence.
Dr. Ric Upton will be leading Digital Reasoning’s Washington, DC area office and team in this exciting time for the company. Their product Synthesys is exactly what analysts require in this era of ever-amassing data.
While many other firms offering intelligence software focus on an aspect of entity extraction, Synthesys provides analysts with a comprehensive package for automating the interpretation of big data when the work of search and content processing systems has been undone.
In an exclusive Arnoldit.com interview, Upton revealed how Digital Reasoning deals with such high volumes of real time information. He said:
[O]ur processing and analytics often have to complement these high volume data flows. We do this in part through judicious use of cloud-based processing augmented by intelligent methods of processing and storing data as it becomes available so that we can avoid the need to perform batch processing or redundant processing of previously-captured data.
The real value is their focus on content centric analytics instead of using statistical algorithms to analyze structured data. Essentially, they decipher the subtext and implicit meanings of content that doesn’t have to be well-structured. The real feat in this is that Digital Reasoning can automate this analysis without any data preparation.
Without Digital Reasoning’s systematic interpretation of data, analysts and clients would actually have to spend hours upon hours of time reading and comprehending content.
Upton shared the reasons why clients have typically used their software:
Our ability to automate understanding is critical to customers with concerns about time, accuracy, completeness, or even the ability to leverage the massive amount of data they have generated.
Serving as an intermediary between the raw data and analysts in the business process, this software has the capabilities to understand the subtleties of the human language. Synthesys can understand the underlying messages in the context of the content’s medium—whether it is a blog, a tweet, or an SMS.
In the interview, Upton sheds insight into how this rich entity extraction manifests itself:
We don’t just extract a name, we can develop and create a persona – the sum of what a person is called, where they have been and when, their relationships with other persona, their behaviors over time, etc.
Digital Reasoning is already looking towards the future, which forecasts that other media such as video and audio sources hold clout as data. As they work on developing methods to analyze these structures, competitors’ opportunities to dominate this field dwindle away.
Megan Feil, October 5, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Supercomputer Predicts Political Revolutions and Maybe More
October 4, 2011
It sounds like science fiction but it appears that technology has evolved to the point where we can now use a supercomputer to predict revolutions. Shocking I know. The way it works is software retrospectively scans over 100 million news articles from the past 30 years and uses sentiment analysis, text geocoding and predictive analytics to determine what direction political upheaval will go.
According to the Read Write Web article, Can the World’s Next Political Revolution be Predicted by Computers? this technology has greater implications than just predicting revolutions. The author states:
This is Culturnomics at work. One of the more well-known applications of it would be the Google Books Ngram Viewer, a Google Labs project that scans 15 million digitized books to reveal the frequency of certain words and phrases over time. By applying a similar methodology to news articles, researchers can gain insight into human society on an even bigger scale and in a more real-time fashion. A growing body of work has shown that measuring the ‘tone’ of this real-time consciousness can accurately forecast many broad social behaviors, ranging from box office sales to the stock market itself.
While this is still a relatively new area of study, this could have major implications for the flow of unfettered information and it is very exciting to see what can happen when brilliant minds from different fields work together. However, this sounds like the PR usually output by IBM and its Watson business unit.
Jasmine Ashton, October 4, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
College Students Not Such Good Googlers
October 4, 2011
I read an interesting article the other day based on a series of studies conducted by five Illinois universities known as the Ethnographic Research in Illinois Academic Libraries Project. The study was conducted over the last two years in order to better understand college students’ study habits. So far the findings have not been data that will get some 20 somethings jobs.
Apparently, not only do most students rarely utilize the help of librarians or even set foot in their school library, but even more surprisingly, the so-called tech-savvy millennial generation isn’t better at using Google than any other age group. In the Mashable Tech article, The Google Gap: College Students Aren’t Good at Searching, Sarah Kessler reported:
One hundred and fifty-six students who were interviewed at the five schools about their research habits mentioned Google more than any database. The 60 students who participated in a “research process interview” — with researchers following them around the library as they searched for information — frequently used the search engine poorly. And when they used other databases, they expected them to work the same way that Google does.
If accurate, search services that spoon feed “predicted” information to the graduates are in a position to control what these bright young folks thing, understand, and cogitate upon. Talk about controlling the conversation. The predictive results crowd are the conversation captains. The users are the rowers of the digital trireme.
While this article emphasizes the problem being that students are unable to narrow their search results when using the search engine, which may be true, I’d like to point you to another article which, in my opinion, gets at the real issue. Librarians are not seen as academic experts who are there to help students with their assignments, but rather as bodies used to point to different sections of the stacks. I believe that in order to improve students study habits, colleges and universities must show students the important role that librarians play in our academic institutions.
Jasmine Ashton, October 4, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
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