Attensity Goes on a Social Offensive
March 3, 2011
Remember the pigeons from Psych 101.
Beginning with the discoveries made by Pavlov and his dogs to the direct application of the science by Ogilvy and his Madison Ave. minions, psychology has long played a part in shaping us as consumers.
Now it seems the growing worldwide embrace of Social media has altered one more aspect of our lives, how we are marketed to, or to phrase it more accurately, how we have begun to market ourselves.
Attensity’s “Customer Segmentation for the Social Media Age“, (which the Attensity writer admits was inspired by a series of tweets) delves into the new media ramifications on conventional segmentation practices.
Attensity explains that before the technological advances made over the last three decades, gathering the information necessary to construct effective marketing campaigns consumed both substantial amounts of time and capital. Despite these costs,
” … Segmentation was the best attempt that we as marketers had to give our customers what they needed, …”
What has changed?
The buyer’s willingness, nay their seeming compulsion to share every fleeting thought and scrap of personal information about themselves to anyone clever enough to operate one of the many devices that link us to the web. The new breed of admen now, instead of sorting through pounds of trial results and customer surveys, can as Attensity states:
” … scour the social web to find mentions of our brands, our competitors’ brands and product categories.”
An interesting read and something to think about the next time you feel the urge to “friend” your laundry detergent.
In a related post on the Parisian consulting and technology firm Capgemini’s site, Senior Consultant Jude Umeh discusses the melding of social media surveillance with the review, application and management of the collected data. His perspective is informed by the hands on experience he received at a partner training session organized by Attensity.
Attensity is collaborating with Pega, a firm offering business process management and customer relationship management software. BPM and CRM are factors in the new math of modern marketing, Attensity seems to have discovered the formula that will position the collective at the head of pack.
Layering their respective technologies, the group appears poised to revolutionize the way information is gleaned from new media. Can Attensity pull off a home run with every search and content processing vendor “discovering” these market sectors? We do not know.
Michael Cory, March 3, 2011
Freebie
Meaning in Casual Wording
March 3, 2011
I love science. Paired with my increasing passion for language and grammar, a sweeter cocktail could hardly be imagined. “Do Casual Words Betray Warlike Intent?” was a fascinating read.
At the recent American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting, James Pennebaker, a University of Texas at Austin psychologist spoke about the study he and assorted colleagues along with the Department of Homeland Security have been engaged in recently. The focus of the research has been on four similar Islamic groups and the relationship between the speech they employ and the actions that follow. The collective hope is the study’s findings can be used to forecast aggressive activity.
Isolating pronouns, determiners, adjectives and prepositions, the group mines them for what Pennebaker calls “linguistic shifts”. To date they have determined that of the four, the two groups who have committed acts of violence, telegraphed said destructiveness with the use of “more personal pronouns, and words with social meaning or which convey positive or negative emotions.” Aside from differentiating between various stylistic elements of expression, Pennebaker has also scrutinized statements made by warmongers from our past, including George W. Bush, with interesting results.
Skepticism has always fueled scientific endeavors, and we must continue to ask questions, especially those that breed discomfort. This science deals with a very grey area and Pennebaker himself labels the results as only “modest probabilistic predictions”. There is no question that this information must be used responsibly, but my aforementioned appreciation for the field keeps me from seeing this as a negative.
If one can discern an opponent’s intent in a fight or a game of cards by careful observation, why is it so strange to think the same could be done from listening to what they say?
Sarah Rogers, March 3, 2011
Freebie
Lucene Revolution Call for Papers
March 3, 2011
In “Lucid Imagination Searching for Lucene Revolution Presenters,” CMS WiRE announced the search for conference speakers:
“Lucid Imagination, the commercial provider of services and support for Solr/Lucene, has opened its search for presenters for the second Lucene Revolution conference, scheduled for May 25-26 in San Francisco. The annual Lucene Revolution, the largest U.S. conference focused on open source enterprise search, brings together developers and industry thought leaders to discuss the use of Solr/Lucene.”
See information about Lucid Imagination here.
Cynthia Murrell, March 3, 2011
Freebie
Palantir: The Next Big Thing
March 3, 2011
I just read “Facebook Investor Peter Thiel: Palantir Is the Next Facebook or Google.” Quite a write up. The story references the Forbes’ story “Super Crunchers.”
To bring myself up to speed I reviewed my Overflight information about Palantir. It is a busy, busy outfit.
First, the company landed $90 million in venture funding last year. If you figure a 10X return on investment, Palantir was a company with a $1 billion potential.
Will Palantir be “the next big thing”? Image source: http://www.penn-olson.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/social-media2.pn
Second, in late 2010, the company was embroiled in a legal matter with the pioneer in data analytics and data fusion for police and intelligence work. The allegations made by i2 Ltd. involved reverse engineering of the i2 proprietary file format ANB (Analyst Notebook). I don’t want to recover information so you can find my write ups about this at this link for Beyond Search and this link for IntelTrax, our data fusion news service.
Third, the Palantir organization was involved in the some muddled HBGary sales initiative. Some current information about this matter is at “HBGary Suspected Trickery.”
The Forbes write up and the recent item from the Forbes’ blog struck me as discordant. Here’s why:
First, Palantir generated traction via splashy graphics and basic data fusion functions. The assertions about Palantir’s technology as a platform upon which to build intelligence applications are not yet founded. Palantir is trying to move from US government centric products and services to the financial services arena. With $90 million, Palantir can move quickly, but I am not sure that the company’s speeding along has reached the definition. I am reminded of my children’s question when we drove from Washington, DC back to Illinois: “Are we there yet, dad?” The answer then and now is, “No, we are about half way.” Marketing makes things appear one way. Reality is a bit different.
A duct tape roof rack. Looks interesting. Source: http://www.myspaceantics.com/image-myspace-graphic/funny-pictures/duct-tape-roof-rack.jpg.html
Second, there are a number of companies with comparable or better technology than Palantir’s. The company that comes immediately to mind is Digital Reasoning. The firm does the Palantir trick of flashy graphics but—and this is a big but—has a platform called Synthesys 3.x. You can ingest disparate data, analyze it using quite useful, quite advanced analytic methods, and you can “see” where the key item of information is. Unlike Palantir, the Digital Reasoning folks are like a group of Eagle scouts. The team, based on my own observation, does not look for short cuts and avoids stomping on other firm’s systems and methods. If you are not familiar with Digital Reasoning, check them out. I am trying to wrangle another job with this outfit, but I have quite a bit of confidence in the technology and the people. No messy allegations, no out of court settlements.
Third, one of the most common errors made in analyzing next generation search is looking at PowerPoint presentations and crafted reports. The action is algorithmic, systems, and methods. When a person with some but not decades of experience in the types of systems used by law enforcement and intelligence agencies stumbles upon a vendor, the reaction is one of surprise. The desire to share the “insight” is high. The problem is that with experience the deeper values of systems emerge from real world experience, not from a crafted demonstration and a couple of interviews.
Check out the write ups about Palantir. There is quite a bit of interesting information about the firm’s business methods. A JP Morgan deal and a reference to some brush with HBGary is not the same as a figuring the plumbing and finding the dripping joints and careless soldering.
But if Forbes says Palantir is the cat’s pajamas, won’t most people agree? My view is that too many people take public relations as the Gospel. I am a bit more reserved in my acceptance of pronouncements from certain business publications. Are the legal hassle and the HBGary events a coincidence or an indication of business tactics?
Stephen E Arnold, March 3, 2011
Freebie and no public relations inputs whatsoever
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March 3, 2011
Find the Indescribable
March 2, 2011
Not every search is as cut and dry as a single keyword. When the object of your quest is too tough to shuffle into an appropriate string of words, discovery search engines may be the remedy. Such engines employ ranking systems that operate on relevancy over popularity. What that means for the user is if one pertinent webpage can be located, said page becomes a jumping off point to call up similar sites.
So, here is something worth perusing and saving: 3 Most Useful Discovery Engines: Find Similar Pages. Discussed therein is Google’s ‘related:’ operator, Similar Pages and Similar Sites, broken down for comparison by categories including index, algorithm and drawbacks. The largest shortcoming mentioned goes to Similar Sites for its inability to function out of the domain level, meaning it only crawls home pages; it was stated that Similar Pages seems to favor home pages as well.
For more details on the indexes, algorithms and compatibility with Google, check out the first link. You may want to squirrel these sites away to your bookmarks for future use.
Sarah Rogers, March 2, 2011
Freebie
A Government Equation with the F Factor
March 2, 2011
Our first thought about a title for this article was “Cluster F Results in $20-Million Bogus Software Purchase (Where “F” = Federal Government).”
Nah, we went with the F Factor.
Desperate to prevent another terrorist attack after 9-11, Feds spent more than $20 million on software by Dennis Montgomery who claimed it could decode terrorist messages hidden in Al Jazeera broadcasts.
According to a NYT article, “Hiding Details of Dubious Deal, US Invokes National Security”:
Montgomery is at the center of a tale that features secret White House briefings, backing from prominent Republicans, backdoor deal-making and fantastic-sounding computer technology. In Dec. 2003 Montgomery told the CIA that certain flights from Britain, Mexico and France bound for the US were hijacked. Bush ordered the flights grounded. Later, the French investigated and concluded the threats were bogus. The CIA then broke off relations with Montgomery. Amazingly (or not), other government agencies were not warned, and two of them kept working with the con man until 2009.
When the flag was up and flapping in the wind, the CIA sacked the employees responsible, right? No. They got promoted.
Montgomery? He’s awaiting trial. Not for the scam but for passing $1.8 million in bad checks in Vegas. Feds have no plans to go after him or get the money back.
In fact, they’re trying to squelch the story, saying it could jeopardize national security. To us this sounds more bogus than Montgomery’s software.
According to a source from the NYT article,
“The Justice Department is trying to cover this up. If this unravels, all the evidence, all the phony terror alerts and all the embarrassment comes up publicly, too.”
Makes sense to us. After all, the French saw through Montgomery, so why couldn’t the US? Freedom fries, anyone?
So what’s this mean for search procurements? We don’t want to think about that.
Robin Broyles, March 2, 2011
Freebie unlike most government contractors’ work
Bing Trumps the GOOG in Travel Search
March 2, 2011
We just posted a short item to a BusinessWeek story that suggested Google has lost some of its sheen. The write up “Bing’s Travel Search, So Much Better Than Google, Gets Even Better” is worth reading. The point in the write up that caught our attention was:
Google does almost nothing interesting in travel search.
Our take on this is that after the miraculous year of 2006, Google has been like a soap box derby racer. The velocity increases as the car moves down the course.
What’s happened in the span of 48 months? Obviously BusinessWeek and now ReadWriteWeb are pointing out deficiencies.
We think these observations are warranted, but the question remains, “What will Google do to address what happens when gravity and friction take over?” We will have to wait until one of the majors in American 19th century fiction, a former Web master, or an unemployed journalist tackles the question and illuminates the underlying issues at the GOOG.
Too bad about travel. I used to show the in situ display of air fares, a function I you can see by running the query “lga sfo”.
Stephen E Arnold, March 2, 2011
Freebie unlike air travel
Search Engine Optimization Discovered in Miami
March 2, 2011
You know a story is bit time when it is covered in a two page article in the Miami Herald. Miami, of course, is the capitol city of The Islands, as The Nine Nations of North America pointed out years ago.
The point of the story is that search engine optimization experts—trained at conferences partially underwritten by the Web indexing services—have learned how to fool the Web search engines. It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature, but it is perfectly okay to fool the Web indexes. Hey, traffic equals ad revenue and has for years. Now the Miami Herald has discovered “The Dark World of Search Engine Manipulation.” There you go.
According the article:
Now Google is incorporating recommendations from your social media “friends” to personalize the search results you get. Who authorized Google to help itself to that information? And precisely how will your so-called friends’ opinions alter the rankings you see? Google is an extraordinary company, and its credo of “do no harm” is impressive. But it’s difficult to think of another private, profit-seeking entity that has ever exercised such vast power over what the world thinks about and pays attention to. That’s a profoundly public function, and with it comes an obligation of accountability that Google has so far bungled.
Will the Miami Herald’s insight have an impact? Does anyone know how social media can be manipulated to spoof relevance?
Nope.
Stephen E Arnold, March 2, 2011
Freebie unlike the ads on the major Web search engines
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March 2, 2011
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