Prochonism Criticizes TV Shows for Time Lingo Goofs. Do TV Writers Care?
June 26, 2012
We have stumbled upon an interesting site. Prochronism.com is the project of Princeton History grad student and Harvard Cultural Observatory fellow Ben Schmidt. It tracks lingual anachronisms (words or phrases are not in their correct historical or chronological time) heard in period TV shows. Schmidt creates word clouds and charts that graphically represent the usages of such language. He also offers commentary. For example:
“The worst phrase, at 30x more common, is ‘status meeting.’ It’s a very rare term in either period, which means that we might be able safely to ignore it: but there are a lot reasons not to. It falls pretty readily into the category I discussed in my Atlantic piece of Mad Men dropping 70s and 80s corporate speech in the 1960s recklessly; the very few places it is used in the 1960s seem to slant towards the government/engineering end of the spectrum, making it out of place at a creative small startup; and the Ngram curve veers pretty sharply up around the Carter/Reagan great divide.”
Picky? Perhaps, but we language folks can get that way. What’s interesting to us, though, is the juxtaposition of text mining and the boob tube. What does such a focus say about America’s intellectual bifurcation?
The sun may not rise. TV writers drag themselves out of bed late in the day anyway and may miss the news about their egregious disregard of TV lingoing.
Cynthia Murrell, June 26, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Comparison Shopping Engines Online List
June 26, 2012
Every quarter, CPC Strategy magically determines the very “best” comparison shopping engine (CSE) available online.
This determination is based on traffic, revenue, conversion rate, and other factors deemed valuable to online shoppers and merchants. A recent article on Search Engine Watch titled, “The 10 Best Shopping Engines” tells us more about the shopping engines and details each of the top ten and how the CSEs help consumers find deals on products.
The site lists Nextag, Pricegrabber, Shopping.com, and Amazon Product Ads among the leaders. The article comments on each of the ten, including this description of Google Product Search:
“Google Product Search, which is transitioning to become Google Shopping, is a free CSE which generates the most traffic and conversions. Merchants can manually upload feeds or use an FTP to upload in bulk. Google is consistently the best performing CSE. While Google Product Search is a free CSE as of this writing, it will transition to paid by October 15.”
Merchants use such data to tailor their marketing budget and gain more sales on specific sites. We are left to wonder, however, is it really possible to quantify what is “best” in the online shopping world? With so many varying factors and tailored searches and sites, the consumer may be better off to use their own discretion.
Andrea Hayden, June 26, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Google and Latent Semantic Indexing: The KnowledgeGraph Play
June 26, 2012
One thing that is always constant is Google changing itself. Not too long ago Google introduced yet another new tool: Knowledge Graph. Business2Community spoke highly about how this new application proves the concept of latent semantic indexing in “Keyword Density is Dead…Enter “Thing Density.” Google’s claim to fame is providing the most relevant search results based on a user’s keywords. Every time they update their algorithm it is to keep relevancy up. The new Knowledge Graph allows users to break down their search by clustering related Web sites and finding what LSI exists between the results. From there the search conducts a secondary search and so on. Google does this to reflect the natural use of human language, i.e. making their products user friendly.
But this change begs an important question:
“What does it mean for me!? Well first and foremost keyword density is dead, I like to consider the new term to be “Concept Density” or to coin Google’s title to this new development “Thing Density.” Which thankfully my High School English teachers would be happy about. They always told us to not use the same term over and over again but to switch it up throughout our papers. Which is a natural and proper style of writing, and we now know this is how Google is approaching it as well.”
The change will means good content and SEO will be rewarded. This does not change the fact, of course, that Google will probably change their algorithm again in a couple months but now they are recognizing that LSI has value. Most IVPs that provide latent semantic indexing, content and text analytics, such as Content Analyst,have gone way beyond what Google’s offering with the latest LSI trends to make data more findable and discover new correlations.
Whitney Grace, June 26, 2012
Sponsored by Content Analyst
Is Mobile Passing thorugh a Meteor Field?
June 26, 2012
The demand for mobile devices is on the rise and right now the force is strong with Android. Device sales and activations are moving at light speed according to the article Google: 900K Android Activations a Day:
“Apple used WWDC to reveal that through March, it had sold 365 million iOS devices. An impressive figure, but at over 25 million activations per month according to Rubin’s math, the Android ecosystem is proving to be an able competitor.”
“Android and its app ecosystem are in good shape in Google’s eyes, but that they are also big pillars in the company’s strategy to compete against Apple and Microsoft in the mobile space. That includes catering to the “bring your own device” BYOD trend that has gripped enterprise IT departments.”
The WWDC 2012 officially unveiled the iOS 6 and brought developers up to speed on the latest innovations being launched into the company’s mobile operating system that powers the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. However, Microsoft is hasn’t been left adrift, as their going to utilize Windows 8 to support desktop and tablet views from all form factors to compete with Apple and Android.
If all this is true, than the big ships are flying on a collision course. With the increasing Android, iPhone and Microsoft sales, pretty soon the mobile industry space will be as oversaturated as a meteor field. This could cause everyone to have trouble maneuvering.
Jennifer Shockley, June 26, 2012
Inteltrax: Top Stories, June 18 to June 22
June 25, 2012
Inteltrax, the data fusion and business intelligence information service, captured three key stories germane to search this week, specifically, some fast-moving news in the big data business.
Our story, “Small Businesses Need Analytics Too” showcases the rising tide of small companies improving business through big data.
With the rise in big data business, “Analytic Customer Support Reaches New Heights” shows how helping the customer is helping vendors differentiate themselves.
Perhaps no news is bigger than the money IBM is spending on big data, as we covered in “IBM Sees the Future and Invests.”
The news landscape is always changing in big data. We’ll keep an eye on the small businesses and the IBMs and everyone in between to keep readers up to date, everyday.
Follow the Inteltrax news stream by visiting www.inteltrax.com
Patrick Roland, Editor, Inteltrax.
June 25, 2012
Does Google Need a New Motto? Nah.
June 25, 2012
Despite the company’s famous motto, Wired insists that “Google Is Evil.” Writer Rory O’Conner contends that Google‘s privacy violations, and attempts to cover them up, make them worthy of the epithet. Specifically, their Street View cars collected private data– from passwords to photos to emails– from anyone whose wireless signal it managed to pick up. When regulators called them on it, the company became defensive, defying and lying, according to FCC findings.
So, how can anyone trust Google? Or, for that matter, other giant data-mongers like Facebook? We can’t, of course, O’Conner insists. He writes:
“Small wonder that Google co-founder Larry Page is feeling ‘paranoid’, as the Associated Press recently reported. Why? As I detail in my new book ‘Friends, Followers and the Future: How Social Media are hanging Politics, Threatening Big Brands and Killing Traditional Media,’ as the new ‘contextual web’ takes the place of the data-driven web of the early 21st century, it will mean further bad news for Google — even though the company still sold $36.5 billion in advertising last year. Couple Google’s paranoia about Facebook and the evident failure of its latest social network, Google Plus, with its problems about privacy, trust and anti-trust, and it’s no surprise that executives are feeling paranoid. After all, they are facing the very real prospect of waging a defensive war on many fronts — social, privacy, and trust — simultaneously. Despite its incredible reach, power and profit, it’s a war that Google — the 21st century equivalent of the still-powerful but increasingly irrelevant Microsoft — may well be destined to lose, along with the trust its users have long extended to one of the world’s most powerful brands.”
Interesting conclusions. Stay tuned to see how this all plays out.
Cynthia Murrell, June 25, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Smart Folks Found to Think Like the Addled Goose
June 25, 2012
After reading the New Yorker’s “Why Smart People are Stupid,” our publisher Stephen E. Arnold is delighted that he is an addled goose living in rural Kentucky. Must be because his IQ is 70, which is dull normal for a human but okay for a water fowl. (I say that with the greatest respect, Steve.)
[Editor’s note: The guy’s IQ is closer to 50 on a good day and with the wind behind his tailfeatures! Sure, he was mentioned in the Barron’s blog here, but that was obviously a fluke.]
The blog post discusses findings from a recent study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology led by Richard West at James Madison University and Keith Stanovich at the University of Toronto. The study builds on the work of Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman, who has been studying the human thought process, including when, why, and how it can fail us, for decades.
Researchers posed classic bias problems to almost 500 subjects and studied the results. Like Kahneman, they found that most people usually take the easiest route to an answer rather than the most logical. We refuse to actually do the math. Most of us are also susceptible to “anchor” bias, where we are likely to base our answers on a factor supplied within the question. See the post for examples (and a more extensive discussion), and try the bat-and-ball and lily pad problems for yourself.
The researchers went beyond Kahneman’s work to study the ways in which such thinking errors are linked to intelligence. They found that they are indeed linked—but perhaps not in the way one would expect. Blogger Jonah Lehrer writes:
“The scientists gave the students four measures of ‘cognitive sophistication.’ As they report in the paper, all four of the measures showed positive correlations, ‘indicating that more cognitively sophisticated participants showed larger bias blind spots.’ This trend held for many of the specific biases, indicating that smarter people (at least as measured by S.A.T. scores) and those more likely to engage in deliberation were slightly more vulnerable to common mental mistakes. Education also isn’t a savior; as Kahneman and Shane Frederick first noted many years ago, more than fifty per cent of students at Harvard, Princeton, and M.I.T. gave the incorrect answer to the bat-and-ball question.”
So why are smarties so dumb? No one knows just yet, but I theorize it has to do with the sort of laziness smart kids learn in elementary school—they can get top marks without fully engaging their brains. Perhaps that means when they come across a slippery question as an adult, they fall right into the trap.
Cynthia Murrell, June 25, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
A Closer Look at Data Sovereignty Issues across Geographical Borders
June 25, 2012
At GigaOM.com, Barb Darrow weighs in on data sovereignty issues around the globe in her post, “Data Sovereignty Issues Still Weigh on Cloud Adoption.” Darrow points out that many large enterprises may embrace cloud computing, just not for key jobs because of restrictive regulations.
The author explains:
These laws…mandate that a company keep a customer’s data in that customer’s home country. One oft-cited reason is to prevent that data from being subpoenaed by a foreign power… Multiple regulations governing where a company can store customer data means that multinationals have to field data centers in every country where they have a presence — a trend that flies in the face of the appeal of borderless clouds.
One takeaway regarding the issue is that cloud service providers have to be able to meet regulatory obligations specific to the business sectors they address. Darrow also points out that until such hurtles are surpassed and cloud providers can provide detailed assurance where data resides, many businesses will keep residing on premise or in private clouds.
Darrow brings some good points to the discussion and highlights issues that need addressed in our global information age where data easily spans across physical borders. You may want to consider a third party solution built by experts in search and data management in the cloud with the European Union in mind. With Mindbreeze, you have options for on-premise and cloud usage:
Our information pairing technology makes you unbeatable. Information pairing unites enterprise information and Cloud information. This results in a complete overview of a company’s knowledge – the basis for your competitive advantage – allowing you to act quickly, reliably, dynamically and profitably in all business matters.
Compared to U.S. solutions, Mindbreeze seems to be on the right track. Read more about the full suite of solutions at http://www.mindbreeze.com/.
Philip West, June 25, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Protected: The Human Nature of Predictive Coding
June 25, 2012
More Data to Query from Carbon Monitoring
June 25, 2012
As companies become more focused on tracking and minimizing their carbon footprints to enhance their sustainability records as well as their bottom lines, carbon monitoring software has surged in popularity. Such applications have matured quickly in recent years, and numerous guides and standard calculations now exist to assist companies with assessing and benchmarking their carbon emissions and ensuring their compliance with increasingly stringent environmental regulations.
Unfortunately, carbon monitoring can be difficult to standardize, as every organization has different monitoring needs based on its operations and culture. Consequently, traditional business intelligence software may collect much inaccurate and superfluous environmental data, thus compromising its utility. In light of these reliability concerns, some software makers have invested in their product portfolios to offer more comprehensive, integrated carbon monitoring capabilities. As noted in the article by William Newman and Cindy Jennings entitled “Automated Carbon Monitoring Works Best with Close Industry Fit, Integration” that recently appeared online on Search Manufacturing ERP’s site:
“Broad sustainability performance applications, including product compliance elements, are available from many enterprise resource planning (ERP) and product lifecycle management (PLM) vendors such as SAP, Dassault Systemes and PTC, as these large software vendors position themselves for growth in the carbon monitoring market.”
Inforbix, like its cutting-edge peers, offers highly customized cloud-based PLM solutions that enable its users to easily find, reuse, and share all types of product data to enhance monitoring, compliance, and profitability.
Tonya Weikel, June 25 2012
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
