Predicting Twitter popularity is all about probability
How can you predict which tweets will get more views, and more viral retweets? A new study developed a statistical model to estimate the popularity of tweets. Read more »
Liking curly fries might not mean you’re smart: When mere data isn’t enough
A recent study found strong correlations between people’s Facebook likes and a number of personal characteristics such as sexual orientation and intelligence. But relying on correlations as proof of anything is a questionable practice. Read more »
ESPN should just hire Nate Silver already
The first week of the NCAA tournament is in, and the results would suggest that Nate Silver is yet again the man when it comes to predicting the things Americans care about. Read more »
Statwing wants to make your data — and armchair quarterback — dreams come true
Many of us yell at the TV while watching our favorite sports teams. Many of us also want to get better at working with data. Statwing thinks it can help with both. Read more »
For big data analytics, recall the tried and true old-school rules
photo: Flickr / luckey_sun
As companies implement big data analytics strategies, they ought to consider some of the best practices in place before the rise of the term “big data.” Read more »
Google’s flu snafu and the reliability of web data
photo: CDC
Google Flu Trends significantly overestimated the number of Americans afflicted with flu-like symptoms during the season’s peak a couple months ago, but assuring accuracy is a big part of the puzzle any time we’re talking about web data. Read more »
Why big data matters and data-ism doesn’t
photo: Shutterstock / Jirsak
Not all data analysis is created equal, and understanding the difference is critical as our society places a greater value on listening to the data. Using big data to cure disease is one thing, using statistics to ruin my sports-watching is quite another. Read more »
Data for dummies: 6 data-analysis tools anyone can use
Not everyone is drowning in big data or has the know-how to deal with it if they were. Here are six free web services that help mere mortals analyze and visualize their own data. Read more »
Maybe big data can quell gun violence — but not in the way you think
Big data might not be able to predict when a mass murderer is about to strike, but perhaps it can shed some light on why certain countries have such high murder rates. Are there factors not related to gun control that inspire a willingness to kill? Read more »
Why Nate Silver and others predicted the election perfectly
photo: Flickr / Carolyn Coles
Guess what, accurately predicting the outcomes of elections really isn’t a partisan affair. What Nate Silver and several others accomplished in perfectly predicting the election isn’t about finding data to support their desired outcomes. It’s about processing reams of imperfect data and figuring out what matters. Read more »
Data doesn’t play politics — and most of it suggests Obama will win
photo: New York Times / Nate Silver
It’s one day before the presidential election, and the results from computer models and other data analyses are in, with most experts giving President Obama a higher probability of winning than challenger Mitt Romney. That’s no lock, however: while data doesn’t lie, models sometimes do. Read more »
5 ideas to help everyone make the most of big data
photo: Shutterstock / Bruce Rolff
I spent two days last week watching experts on big data and data science discuss how their companies are building businesses around data, or at least rethinking how they do business. Although most came from the web, these five ideas should matter across industries. Read more »
How 0xdata wants to help everyone become data scientists
Although it’s still a work in progress, 0xdata thinks it has the answer to the problem of doing advanced statistical analysis at scale: Build on HDFS for scale, use the widely known R programming language and hide it all under a simple interface. Read more »
Ticket seller Amiando touts ‘over 100%’ growth
Amiando, the German-focused ticket sales service owned by business network Xing, has been crowing about its growth. In fact, its stats don’t actually say a lot — but they do serve as a glowing end-of-term report for the soon-to-depart company founders. Read more »
Obama administration to push big data agenda
Big data must really be big to get its own White House-sanctioned research and development initiative. The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy will host a live webcast Thursday to outline how the government can “help big data” efforts. Read more »
March Madness: Who the data scientists are picking
Earlier this week, I weighed in on the NCAA tournament with my data-influenced picks, and now the experts have crunched the numbers and are weighing in with their purely objective picks. If you haven’t filled out your bracket, you might want to read this. Read more »
My March Madness picks (or “I think data made me a psychic”)
March Madness is officially upon us, and this year I have a plan to dominate my betting pool by using big data. I hope. I’m going to balance my gut feelings and my heart’s desires with statistics and . . . I’m going to hope everyone else doesn’t do the same. Read more »
A plea to startups: kill your nonsensical stats
In the never-ending quest to provide easy sound bites and press-friendly stats, startups often flirt with numbers that just don’t make sense. Case in point: London-based kids’ website Moshi Monsters, which has a very strange piece of numerical wizardry. Read more »
Internet Observatory offers real-time IP traffic trends
Broadband geeks don’t have to look to the stars any longer to guess how much of Europe’s bandwidth is generated by BitTorrent and how SIP is faring against Skype on the continent. Ipoque’s new Internet Observatory offers real-time traffic data for these and other trends. Read more »
Americans love their TVs, but flirt with streaming
Is there any record the U.S. can’t break? Americans now watch more TV than ever, with every viewer clocking 22 more minutes per day than just a year ago, according to Nielsen. However, some people seem to prefer online video over traditional TV viewing. Read more »
Nielsen: In Online Video, Ethnicity Matters
Asian-American consumers watch more online video than any other ethnic group in the U.S., and white people don’t seem to care much at all about video streaming. Nielsen’s latest look at ethnic media consumption habits, which raises some interesting questions about the priorities of this industry. Read more »
Mac App Store Nets Evernote 40,000 New Users
The Mac App Store saw over 1 million downloads in its first day of availability. That’s a terrific number, but pinning down the effect it’s had for individual developers is a little trickier. Evernote, at least, had tremendous success on launch day. Read more »
Mac App Store Sees More Than 1M Downloads in First Day
The just-launched Mac App Store experienced more than 1 million downloads in its first active day, according to Apple. No word on how many of those were paid or how many were free, but Apple seems eager to attract new developers with the news. Read more »
You Blog, But Does Anyone Care?
As we approach the end of the year, it’s a good time to take a step back and look at some data to see which of your blog posts have been getting attention and which ones have been mostly ignored. Read more »
Infographic: The Apple App Store by the Numbers
iPhone and iPad app discovery website App of the Day spent some time analyzing App Store data and came up with some interesting findings, which they compiled in this infographic. Check it out for a detailed look at how Apple’s mobile marketplace ticks. Read more »
Nielsen: iPad Owners Younger, More Receptive of Ads
A new study by Nielsen about mobile device users revealed some interesting statistics about iPad owners. First, they tend to be younger men, and second, they tend to be more susceptible to advertising than most (which is maybe how got an iPad to begin with). Read more »
45% of TV Viewers Get Their Shows Online
Linear TV still reigns supreme, but more and more consumers around the world are using time shifting and online video on a regular basis. A new study from Ericsson’s ConsumerLab say that 45 percent of all viewers access TV through online platforms once a week. Read more »
Mobile TV: Bigger Is Better
Bigger screens lead to longer mobile video engagement times: That’s the result of some data crunching over at MobiTV, which analyzed the World Cup viewing patterns of various mobile users. Another result of that research: Users of Android devices watch far more soccer than iPhone users. Read more »
Survey Says: Faster Broadband Doesn’t Equal Innovation
The state of U.S. broadband is mediocre compared to countries like South Korea. Things are even worse in China. But the U.S. has some great online video sites, and China continues to innovate in the P2P video space. What does that say about broadband and innovation? Read more »
5 Lessons in Misinformation
The online space has delivered the kind of measurability we only dreamed of before. The problem is that more seems to mean less: the avalanche of stats seems to reveal little real, reliable information. Technology research reporting is rife with value judgments, omissions and unjustified conclusions. Read more »
Apple Ranks a Lackluster Fourth in Notebook Reliability Study
Apple is fairly reliable, but not the most reliable company of all when it comes to notebooks, according to a new study by research firm SquareTrade. The top honor goes to Asus, which surprised me, but I suppose shouldn’t have when I consider the build quality […] Read more »
Orange Launch Day iPhone Sales Set a Record
Today is the day the iPhone stopped being an exclusive in the UK. Officially, as of 7 a.m., the device went on sale at Orange retailers across the UK, and the carrier is already claiming that the iPhone has gone over exceedingly well with consumers, despite […] Read more »
UK on the Forefront of Online TV, DVR Use
One in three Internet users in the UK is watching TV online, according to a new study by the British media regulation authority Ofcom. This trend seems to be largely driven by the BBC’s iPlayer, which is used by 27 percent of the country’s online population. […] Read more »
Is P2P Dead? Not So Fast
Network security vendor Arbor Networks has been drumming up publicity for its upcoming Internet Observatory Report this week. One of the widely reported tidbits is that P2P has “declined dramatically in the last two years,” and that it has been replaced by YouTube and other streaming […] Read more »
85% of Mac Owners Also Have a PC: Report
Mac users may be getting soft on Windows machines as time moves on, according to a recent report by consumer research firm NPD Group. It found that of those polled, a whopping 85 percent admitted to owning both Mac and Windows PC computers. That’s a far […] Read more »
The Future Of Work: It's Data, Baby
Last week, Sam explored trends in the technology jobs market, suggesting that significant opportunities only reveal themselves when examining both the available jobs and the underlying trends in demand for skills. Coincidentally, on the same day that Sam’s piece was published, The New York Times suggested […] Read more »
Lebron James, and Naked Without Data
In today’s world, companies, entities, people and concepts are naked without data. Making business decisions or predicting trends using data analysis is perhaps the only way to survive the future. However, it is not the raw data, but how you analyze it that matters. In other […] Read more »
Ego: Web Statistics on Your iPhone
As someone who manages a few different web sites and Twitter accounts, I do find that it’s easy to waste a decent chunk of time checking all their various statistics. I often browse to the different websites from my iPhone, logging into each account sequentially to […] Read more »
Mapping the World of Piracy
The folks at the Pirate Bay released a Google Maps mash-up Wednesday that illustrates its worldwide user base, with exact percentages by country. It’s a pretty fascinating project in that it helps to dispel certain myths about BitTorrent, namely that while piracy may be a global […] Read more »
Upgrades, Darn Upgrades and Statistics
Hopefully Benjamin Disraeli will posthumously forgive me for the major abuse of his quote (made famous by Mark Twain), but the fine folks over at the Omni Group gave us all a sneak peek into some very interesting data they’ve been allowed by users to collect […] Read more »
