Intelligenx Emphasizes Discovery and Analytics
July 25, 2013
We noticed something interesting at the website of Intelligenx: the company is now positioning itself as a discovery and analytics vendor. In 2008, our own Stephen Arnold interviewed the father-and-son team behind the company, which at the time was pioneering faceted search technology. Now, the firm’s tag line is “The Power of Discovery.” It seems like a natural evolution. The Intelligenx mission statement now reads:
“Intelligenx is a next generation industrial grade search and analytics company that enables organizations to get the most value out of their information assets. Websites around the world use Intelligenx products to service billions of search and data queries quickly and without the hassle of clunky IT infrastructure.
“Our mission is to change the way the world finds information.
“Intelligenx solutions enable organizations to maximize the social, economic and intelligence value of their information assets by providing a web-based search and navigation solution. Our solutions can aggregate data from multiple structured or unstructured repositories providing a highly effective, interactive search experience for end-users.”
Since it launched in 1996, Intelligenx (pronounced “intelligence”) has successfully weathered the many changes that have propelled the digital-information field. Perhaps it is because their broadly defined mission allows plenty of pivot-room, or because the company makes a point of looking ahead and anticipating market needs. Whatever the reasons, public and private organizations around the world rely on solutions from Intelligenx. The company is located in Northern Virginia, with offices in Latin America.
Cynthia Murrell, July 25, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
IBM and the Social Analytics Push
July 25, 2013
IBM is fashionably late to the social-media-analytics game, and Slashdot touches on some factors that pose a challenge to the tech giant in, “IBM Pushing New Social Analytics Software.” Writer Nick Kolakowski informs us that the company is launching several new cloud-based social tools, including its Social Media Analytics platform.
The article asserts the new tools are a response to Salesforce’s Marketing Cloud, and suggests that Google‘s and Oracle‘s forays into social analytics similarly prodded IBM. However, I suspect the company has been eyeing the social space for some time, but felt no compunction to rush in before it was ready.
Kolakowski enumerates some of the obstructions for IBM in this arena:
“But IBM faces a crowded marketplace, with new and well-funded competitors arising from unexpected directions. Last week, reports emerged that IBM is locked in battle with Amazon over a cloud-computing contract for the CIA. Although Amazon boasts a well-established presence as a provider of cloud services to businesses, it’s a relative newcomer to the federal-computing space where IBM has operated comfortably for years; and given its technology and resources, it could definitely give IBM some headaches if the two end up fighting for the same contracts.
“If that wasn’t enough, IBM faces a new challenge from GE, which is rapidly expanding into healthcare analytics and the so-called ‘Industrial Internet.’ Given GE’s capitalization and reputation for innovation, it could also go toe-to-toe with IBM for customers.”
Yes, IBM has competition in the social media arena, and it will be interesting to see how it moves forward here. Even if it does not dominate the market, Big Blue is sure to capture a wedge of the pie (chart) large enough to keep it satisfied.
Cynthia Murrell, July 25, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Taming the Analytic Fire Hose of Twitter
July 24, 2013
If anything, Twitter is less a social media portal and more of an informational fire hose. The data that comes barreling through that outlet has been a horse no digital cowboy could break. However, we are starting to see promising signs of tools to do just that, according to a recent All Twitter article, “FirstRain Unveils First Tweets, Bringing Curated Twitter Intelligence to Sales Teams.”
According to the story:
“FirstRain’s FirstTweets bills itself as ’the world’s first solution for extracting business-relevant Twitter intelligence for sales, marketing and senior leadership teams.’”
The product filters out 99.9% of the Twitter fire hose to deliver only the most relevant Twitter intelligence directly into businesses’ CRM software and social enterprise platforms.
As anyone who’s used Twitter before, especially on behalf of a large brand, knows, it can be incredibly time-consuming to weed through hundreds of thousands of tweets to determine which to respond to, which accounts to cultivate relationships with, and what’s being said about your business on an hourly basis.
We are really excited to see this in action. However, we are cautiously optimistic. We’ve seen too many other social media analytics opportunities not live up to the billing. However, if FirstRain can pull it off, this will be on everyone’s wish list.
Patrick Roland, July 24, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Healthcare Analytics Issues Finally Solved
July 24, 2013
Does anyone really know how to crack the nut that has been sitting on healthcare’s table, begging to be opened? That question is, of course, will anything really help get all the unstructured data from medical files into a usable tool for helping professionals? The jury is still out after reading a recent Chiliad article, “The Hardest Question in Healthcare: What Works?”
In the interview we learned:
“To succeed in understanding what works by looking at all of the data, we also need a new approach that works. We need tools at our fingertips to allow experts in their field who are not experts in data analysis get to the bottom of important questions. We need tools that can reach out to data wherever it exists without compromising privacy, without compromising data control and data ownership.”
While this sounds like a person hunting for some answers. We are not so sure they have them at hand. Maybe nobody does? What the field of healthcare analytics has no shortage of, as we just saw, is optimism. We saw it earlier this year when Yahoo! declared that healthcare reform might be a boon for analytics. While that, too, makes logical sense we are not convinced anyone has a concrete solution to healthcare’s headaches.
Patrick Roland, July 24, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Top Analytics Solutions Determined
July 24, 2013
Analytics is an ever-growing buzzword in the enterprise technology realm. Users and developers alike are turning to analytics to add depth and meaning to unstructured data and Big Data. Now, Website Magazine is ranking the top 50 analytics solutions. Read more in the press release, “Website Magazine Reveals the Top 50 Analytics Solutions.”
The article says:
“The Top 50 Analytics Solutions for Digital Media Pros were determined based on the quality of analytics solutions in four categories. Among the honorees are household names like IBM, Google and Adobe, as well as rapidly growing companies such as Pentaho and LucidWorks. Visit wsm.co/top50813 for the full list of analytics solutions for digital media pros.”
So it appears that major players are expanding into analytics, which is to be expected. They want to maintain their hold in an ever-changing market. However, a sure bet is on the smaller more specialized companies. A company like LucidWorks is well established in the market, but is agile and focused, always anticipating the way the market is moving. Their solutions can be implemented from the cloud or on-site, or in a hybrid format. LucidWorks builds on the strength of Lucene/Solr but also combines the best of emerging technologies such as Hadoop.
Emily Rae Aldridge, July 24, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Big Names Ramping up the Analytics Field
July 23, 2013
The world of analytics is getting much more competitive. We’ve been seeing some impressive names belly up to the bar or revamp their already available platforms. One such case we discovered in a recent Daily Finance article, “Actuate’s Newest Release of BIRT Analytics Add Key Advanced Predictive Analytics for Business Analysis.”
According to the story:
“Adding to its already rich set of capabilities for business analyst-driven predictive analytics, BIRT Analytics 4.2 sports three new advanced features: Association Rules for detecting purchase patterns over time (for instance in grocery receipts by and across customer segments); Decision Tree, which allows prediction of outcomes based on decision paths; and Campaign Workflow to enable you to effectively execute campaigns based on the analysis, and set up a process to improve them based on analyzing the results.”
While we have extremely high hopes for this new edition of BIRT, we are aware that it’s a long, hard climb to the top of the analytics mountain. Personally, we think organizations like Oracle and Sinequa do a better job. We are patiently waiting to watch BIRT burst to the top of the charts, but know that it might never happen. Such is the world of analytics, be warned.
Patrick Roland, July 23, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Clarabridge and Brandwatch Partner Up and Promise More Sophisticated Customer Analytics
July 21, 2013
The article on Contact Centre Live titled Clarabridge Partners with Brandwatch to Extend its Clarabridge Social Solutions addresses the partnership between the Customer Experience Management provider Clarabridge and the global analytics provider Brandwatch. The two companies believe their integration will deliver the resources to gain a holistic understanding of any given business’s customer base. CEO of Clarabridge Sid Banerjee commented,
“Clarabridge has been and continues to be the pioneer in multi-source customer experience management for the Global 1000. Our partnership with Brandwatch provides our customers with an integrated end-to-end solution for social media, further expanding our Clarabridge Social offering. The level of rich social media data provided by Brandwatch, coupled with the intelligent analytics and operational capabilities of Clarabridge, adds up to the most sophisticated CEM hub available on the market and that is incredibly beneficial to our customers.”
The two companies bring different technological advances to the table. Brandwatch is able to capture data from millions of sites in over 25 languages and is able to filter out the irrelevant data, refining searches. Clarabridge, which seems to have moved beyond its original market, offers a method of skipping past social posts without merit and discover the insightful posts buried beneath the spam.
Chelsea Kerwin, July 21, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Text Analytics Pros Daily
July 17, 2013
We have found a new resource: an aggregation tailored to data analysts, The Text Analytics Pros Daily, is now available at the content curation site Paper.li. The page pulls in analytics-related news arranged under topics like Business, Technology, Education, and the Environment. Our question: what are their criteria for “pros”?
For those unfamiliar with Paper.li, it is a platform that allows users to create their own aggregations by choosing their sources and customizing their page. Their description specifies:
“The key to a great newspaper is a great newsroom. The Paper.li platform gives you access to an ever-expanding universe of articles, blog posts, and rich media content. Paper.li automatically processes more than 250 million social media posts per day, extracting & analyzing over 25 million articles. Only Paper.li lets you tap into this powerful media flow to find exactly what you need, and publish it easily on your own online newspaper.”
As I peruse the page, I see many articles from a wide variety of sources; Marketwired, the Conference Board, Marketing Cloud, and assorted tech bloggers. There is a lot of information here— it is worth checking out for any content analytics pros (or hobbyists.)
Cynthia Murrell, July 17, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Talend Snatches Up Local Data
July 15, 2013
From Dataversity we read about another analytics partnership; this one is between Talend and Loqate. “Talend and Loqate Partner to Increase the Value of Strategic Information” describes the two companies. Talend is a global open source software plater and Loqate does international address verification. The reason for the season of this relationship deals with addressing data quality demands of enterprise organizations.
The article quotes Fabrice Bonan, co-founder and chief technical officer at Talend:
“Talend’s commitment to our customers is to let them realize the full value of their information assets. Our partnership with Loqate provides a crucial piece of this puzzle: the verification, enrichment and geocoding of addresses that ensure the accuracy and reliability of location data. These added capabilities help our customers increase the efficiency of critical business processes such as logistics or customer acquisition and retention.”
As local data becomes increasing relevant to a mobile-charged society, it is no wonder Talend and Loqate have buddied up. As previous partnerships have shown, it is important for companies like Loqate to have the clean and accurate data ready and available before anything else takes place. We will keep watching to see how this progresses.
Megan Feil, July 15, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
The Future of Data Analysis Platforms
July 11, 2013
Large consulting and accounting firm Information Management expresses its views on analytics in, “Big Data: Rethinking the Platform.” Writer Narendra Mulani sketches out a common problem for today’s companies: incorporating new analysis technologies into existing infrastructures. Some try to forgo the new by translating all data into a structured format before analysis but, he explains, that frustrating path just ends up wasting time and money. It is better to accept from the beginning that your system will need an overhaul to make the most of the big data trend.
Companies can approach their redesign a number of ways, stresses the write-up. Virtualized and consolidated data centers have become popular, but Mulani suspects another model might supplant that approach. He writes:
“In particular, a platform consisting of large numbers of smaller, commodity servers handling storage locally is highly scalable. To expand capacity, the business just adds more of these smaller servers, which are relatively inexpensive, rather than having to upgrade enterprise services and storage equipment at great cost. . . . In practice, in order to deliver the most value to the business, chief technology officers and their teams will need to operate with both [old and new] models, while ensuring their data flows to the right places at the right time. This hybrid model will enable businesses to capture the benefits of new big data platforms without giving up their existing architectures. Indeed, some of the technologies that power the new will also be used to invigorate what is already in place.”
The article goes on to enumerate some things to consider with such a hybrid approach, and notes that what works for one organization will not meet the needs of others. Designing a system requires a balance between development costs and potential benefits for each company. For Mulani, one central principle guides the process: “IT should be an enabler of business results.” It is a simple concept that nevertheless eludes some decision makers.
Cynthia Murrell, July 11, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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