How a Star Trek convention explains the secret to selling more stuff
photo: Flickr / Magic Madzik
When it comes to forming a bond with customers, one expert suggests using big data to help them form a bond with each other. Read more »
On big data, the Boston Marathon and civil liberties
photo: Shutterstock / Faraways
The FBI has amassed terabytes of data from sources near the terrorist attack that occured during the Boston Marathon. This raises a question about the role crowdsourcing could play in solving some crimes while protecting citizens’ privacy. Read more »
The future of search is gravitational: Content will come to you
photo: Shutterstock / photobank.kiev.ua
First, it was semantic search and knowledge graphs surfacing information related to our keyword searches. But there’s a handful of companies working to make relevant content come to us, whatever we’re doing. Read more »
A startup asks, ‘What if you didn’t have to analyze data at all?’
photo: Shutterstock / phipatbig
Eight years after forming, a startup called BeyondCore is finally launching publicly with a product it claims can revolutionize analytics. Rather than making analysts search for the needle in the haystack, BeyondCore says it remove the human element and deliver that needle on a silver platter. Read more »
Why better traffic data means more than just a faster commute
photo: Shutterstock / TonyV3112
Companies such as Inrix are making their money helping commuters and commercial drivers find the fastest routes through traffic, but their reach could go much further. Creative organizations can apply the data in entirely new areas, and crowdsourcing means seeing how the world moves. Read more »
MIT researcher says he can predict Twitter trends
photo: Shutterstock / turtleteeth
An MIT researcher says he has created an algorithm that can identify Twitter trends hours before the service can itself. If the algorithm works as he says, it could help Twitter — and many more companies — make a lot of money. Read more »
How Entelo uses data to make your résumé passé
photo: Shutterstock / maminez
A startup called Entelo is trying to make résumés a thing of the past by aggregating profiles of tech workers from their public data, and then feeding those results to recruiters. The secret sauce is an algorithm for spotting when someone might be looking for work. Read more »
5 sites that crunch data to help you predict the president
Big data and data science have already proven their worth in the worlds of online advertising and marketing, and now they’re being turned to elections. Here are five sites to follow if you want to impress your peers with data-driven insights on who’ll win in November. Read more »
Why data should be our guiding light on public policy
There’s so much data available and such powerful tools for analyzing it that the world might be a lot better off if politicians listened to the data first, rather than their parties or constituents. Already, data is showing ways to limit everything from traffic to AIDS. Read more »
Hey, Los Angeles, Xerox thinks it can clear traffic on I-10
photo: Shutterstock / Aaron Kohr
If you’re reading this in Los Angeles right now, there’s a decent chance you’re doing so while stuck in traffic on a packed freeway. Well, help might be on the way if efforts from companies such as Xerox to make sense of traffic flows work out. Read more »
Kaggle is now crowdsourcing big data creativity
In a move to expand its utility beyond simply finding better answers to known statistical problems, hot data-science startup Kaggle is now letting its stable of expert data scientists compete to tell companies how they can improve their businesses using machine learning. Read more »
‘Can I help you?’: How LivePerson decides who’s worth the personal touch
Even if you haven’t heard of LivePerson, chances are you’ve encountered one of its products while browsing online. It’s the company behind those pop-up windows offering real-time chat with a representative, and it uses big data to decide which visitors are worth what type of attention. Read more »
Is this data scientist a consumer’s best friend?
In Oren Etzioni’s world, telling you where to buy a product is so 20 years ago. Today, Etzioni wants to tell you when to buy. Tomorrow, well, maybe he can let you know when you’re in the vicinity of a great deal. Read more »
5 companies turning your data into dollars
Big data and the marketing world go together like peanut butter and jelly. Marketers want to present their brands in the most-effective manner possible and always put the right ad in front of the right person. Big data makes that possible at a whole new level. Read more »
Opera buys Commendo to create predictive analytics powerhouse
If you’ve ever wondered what would happen if the top two teams in the Netflix Prize competition united and put their predictive analytics skills to work together, you’ll soon find out. On Tuesday, big data service provider Opera Solutions acquired Austrian predictive analytics specialist Commendo. Read more »
Why big data needs real-time intelligent systems
“Anticipation denotes intelligence.” Zubin Dowlaty, VP and head of innovation and development of analytics-outsourcing firm Mu Sigma, said at Structure:Data that’s what companies need to be striving for and in this era of big data, the barriers to achieving that have fallen away. Read more »
9 more companies putting a cloud spin on big data
In September, I profiled six companies doing big data in the cloud, and here are nine more. One of the themes of Structure:Data is “putting big data to work,” and there’s no easier way to get started doing so than with a cloud service. Read more »
Skytree intros machine learning for the masses
Big data startup Skytree emerged from stealth mode on Thursday with a product that is designed to democratize the science of machine learning while improving significantly on the speed and scale of existing options. Skytree has raised $1.5 million from Javelin Venture Partners. Read more »
Google proves ‘loooool’ is funnier than boring old ‘lol’
More news from the Google-data-scientists-conduct-the-coolest-research desk: YouTube has created an algorithm for determining what videos are funniest based on the intensity of viewer comments. It sounds fairly unimportant, but YouTube’s work actually speaks volumes about the potential of social-media sentiment analysis. Read more »
Yahoo data scientist: It’s Romney-Christie or Gingrich-Rubio
According to a predictive analysis experiment by a Yahoo data scientist, U.S. voters can expect to see either a Mitt Romney-Chris Christie or a Newt Gingrich-Marco Rubio ticket to face off against Obama-Biden in this year’s presidential election, if his data is accurate. Read more »
Mu Sigma offers $108M reasons to believe in big data
Mu Sigma has closed a $108 million investment round to expand its analytics-outsourcing business. Mu Sigma takes customers’ data and it turns it into business insights, meaning customers don’t have to built their own in-house big data expertise. It’s an already-profitable business that’s only getting bigger. Read more »
Big data: Making even call centers intelligent
Calling a company’s customer service department can be a frustrating experience. If only there was a way to make it a more rewarding experience for everyone involved and perhaps even save everyone some time. That might be coming, and big data might be leading the charge. Read more »
Prepare to fill one of 1.5M data-savvy manager jobs
The United States alone faces a shortage of 140,000 to 190,000 people with deep analytical skills. We are starting to understand the value of being data-savvy and how different kinds of data can be used to influence behavior and improve organizational policies and practices. Read more »
The story behind Opera’s $84M big data funding
Predictive analytics provider Opera Solutions has raised $84 million from equity investors in its first-ever funding round, but that amount shouldn’t be surprising for anyone familiar with the company. I’ve called Opera the big data expert you’ve never heard of, but that’s about to change. Read more »
Rovio wants to predict Angry Birds players’ moves
Angry Birds creator Rovio is using predictive analytics software from Seattle-based startup Medio in an attempt to improve the gaming experience and keep users playing. Mobile and social games might appear to be cute diversions, but they’re generating lots of money. Read more »
Greenplum protégé brings predictive muscle to Exadata
Alpine Data Labs, a predictive analytics startup that incubated within Greenplum (now part of EMC), is expanding its support beyond the Greenplum Database and into Oracle’s Exadata appliance and the open-source Postgres database. Alpine tries to distinguish itself by running entirely within companies’ analytic databases. Read more »
Check Out the Big Data Expert You’ve Never Heard Of
Don’t feel bad if you haven’t heard of Opera Solutions. However, the analytics-as-a-service provider has been quietly building up its $100 million company since 2004 and, with big data on the tip of the IT world’s collective tongue, Opera is ready to start spreading the word. Read more »
