It shows how Facebook data scientists tweaked the algorithm that determines which posts appear on users’ news feeds—specifically, researchers skewed the number of positive or negative terms seen by randomly selected users. Facebook then analyzed the future postings of those users over the course of a week to see if people responded with increased positivity or negativity of their own, thus answering the question of whether emotional states can be transmitted across a social network. Result: They can!
Read more at The Atlantic
Saturday, June 28
Friday, June 27
Teens Aren’t Fleeing Facebook After All
Nearly 80% of U.S. teens still use Facebook and are more active on the social networking site than any other, according to a Forrester Research report. The results are actually consistent with a comScore report from earlier this year that found even though there was a three-percentage-point drop in Facebook usage among college-aged adults, 89% of those college kids still use the site.
Read more at TIME
Read more at TIME
Sunday, June 15
Four factors that make a powerful visual
1. Authenticity
The consumer wants to believe that the people they are seeing are real… what they’re doing and how they’re acting is real.
At Getty Images, we've seen this trend play out with a change in the type of imagery we've been selling over the past five years. Our most popular 2007 baby versus 2012 baby shows the latter is clearly more candid. It’s not the perfect moment, but it is a real moment. And our 2007 woman versus 2012 woman shows quite a change, not just in her look, but in her attitude.
Read more here
The consumer wants to believe that the people they are seeing are real… what they’re doing and how they’re acting is real.
At Getty Images, we've seen this trend play out with a change in the type of imagery we've been selling over the past five years. Our most popular 2007 baby versus 2012 baby shows the latter is clearly more candid. It’s not the perfect moment, but it is a real moment. And our 2007 woman versus 2012 woman shows quite a change, not just in her look, but in her attitude.
Read more here
What a Data Scientist does
What the industry calls a 'data scientist' now is really several different roles.. each requiring a different skill set.
1 business analyst
The role of business analyst existed long before the terms "big data" or "data scientist" were in vogue. This person works with front-end tools, meaning those closest to the organization's core business or function, such as Microsoft Excel, Tableau Software's visualization tools, or QlikTech's QlikView BI apps. A business analyst might also have sufficient programming skills to code up dashboards, and have some familiarity with SQL and NoSQL.
2 machine learning expert
The second data science role is that of machine-learning expert, a statistics-minded person who builds data models and makes sure the information they provide is accurate, easy to understand, and unbiased. "These are the people who develop algorithms and crunch numbers," said Wu. "They are interested in building models that predict something."
3 data engineer.
The third key job, data engineer, is "the bottom layer, the foundation," said Wu. "They are the ones who play with Hadoop, MapReduce, HBase, Cassandra. These are people interested in capturing, storing, and processing this data… so that the algorithm people can build models and derive insights from it."
Read more at Information Week
1 business analyst
The role of business analyst existed long before the terms "big data" or "data scientist" were in vogue. This person works with front-end tools, meaning those closest to the organization's core business or function, such as Microsoft Excel, Tableau Software's visualization tools, or QlikTech's QlikView BI apps. A business analyst might also have sufficient programming skills to code up dashboards, and have some familiarity with SQL and NoSQL.
2 machine learning expert
The second data science role is that of machine-learning expert, a statistics-minded person who builds data models and makes sure the information they provide is accurate, easy to understand, and unbiased. "These are the people who develop algorithms and crunch numbers," said Wu. "They are interested in building models that predict something."
3 data engineer.
The third key job, data engineer, is "the bottom layer, the foundation," said Wu. "They are the ones who play with Hadoop, MapReduce, HBase, Cassandra. These are people interested in capturing, storing, and processing this data… so that the algorithm people can build models and derive insights from it."
Read more at Information Week
Can Twitter Survive?
News organizations have been reporting in recent weeks that Twitter’s growth rate has been slowing, which has spurred speculation about its future... Our studies have shown that Twitter occupies an important segment of the social networking world, but, in sheer numbers, its user base lags far behind the social networking behemoth Facebook.
Twitter is different; not only in who it attracts, but also in how it is used and how messages spread on the platform. Twitter also often acts more like a broadcasting network than a social network, connecting speakers and their content to the public.
Read more at Pew
Twitter is different; not only in who it attracts, but also in how it is used and how messages spread on the platform. Twitter also often acts more like a broadcasting network than a social network, connecting speakers and their content to the public.
Read more at Pew
Time Inc. spinoff reflects a troubled magazine business
While the digital side of the business has been making some gains, overall magazine print circulation (including single-copy sales, subscriptions and even digital replicas) has been down each of the past six years, while the number of print ad pages fell for the eighth year in a row in 2013.
Overall employment on both the business and editorial sides of U.S. magazines fell 3% in 2013, following a 4% decline in 2012, according to Advertising Age Over the longer term, consumer magazines have shed a total of 41,500 jobs since 2003 (a 28% drop).
Read more at Pew
Overall employment on both the business and editorial sides of U.S. magazines fell 3% in 2013, following a 4% decline in 2012, according to Advertising Age Over the longer term, consumer magazines have shed a total of 41,500 jobs since 2003 (a 28% drop).
Read more at Pew
The 100 Most-Edited Wikipedia Articles
The top historical figures, per that report, are George W. Bush, Michael Jackson, Jesus, Barack Obama and Adolf Hitler.
Read more at FiveThirtyEight
Read more at FiveThirtyEight
Thursday, June 12
Mining for tweets of gold
Dataminr, a New York startup analyses the 500m or so tweets sent out daily.. for important events and news not yet reported by the mainstream media, the firm now has dozens of customers in finance, the news business and the public sector. In January it and Twitter struck a deal to provide alerts to CNN. In April its tracking of tweets was part of a strategy by the authorities in Boston to avoid a repeat of last year’s terrorist attack at the city’s annual marathon.
Dataminr is one of a growing number of firms built on analysing data from Twitter, though most do not have its focus on real-time news alerts.
Read more at The Economist
Dataminr is one of a growing number of firms built on analysing data from Twitter, though most do not have its focus on real-time news alerts.
Read more at The Economist
Three eye-catching big data ventures
1. Open Data Institute
Aim: free data for all
The not-for-profit Open Data Institute has positioned itself as both a catalyst for data innovation and a global hub for data expertise. Based in Shoreditch, east London, the ODI oversees a network of collaborative international "nodes."
2. The Human Brain Project
Aim: to reveal the workings of human consciousness
Flush with €1bn in funding, the Human Brain Project is a 10-year quest to reveal the hidden workings of consciousness.
3. IBM's Computational Creativity
Aim: to make computers 'creative'
Big-data analytics techniques have been deployed by IBM's Thomas J Watson Research Center to create new food recipes – what you might call technouvelle cuisine – mined from sources including Wikipedia and Fenaroli's Handbook of Flavor Ingredients, then tweaked with an algorithm designed to add creativity to matched ingredients.
Read more here
Aim: free data for all
The not-for-profit Open Data Institute has positioned itself as both a catalyst for data innovation and a global hub for data expertise. Based in Shoreditch, east London, the ODI oversees a network of collaborative international "nodes."
2. The Human Brain Project
Aim: to reveal the workings of human consciousness
Flush with €1bn in funding, the Human Brain Project is a 10-year quest to reveal the hidden workings of consciousness.
3. IBM's Computational Creativity
Aim: to make computers 'creative'
Big-data analytics techniques have been deployed by IBM's Thomas J Watson Research Center to create new food recipes – what you might call technouvelle cuisine – mined from sources including Wikipedia and Fenaroli's Handbook of Flavor Ingredients, then tweaked with an algorithm designed to add creativity to matched ingredients.
Read more here
Tuesday, June 3
Some Newspapers to Staff: Social Media Isn’t Optional, It’s Mandatory
The newspapers that mandate participation on social media emphasize a newsroom-wide approach to traffic growth. The Gannett-owned Jackson Clarion-Ledger, for instance, requires its writers to maintain Facebook and Twitter profiles and everyone on staff helps draw attention to the site, Executive Editor and Director of Audience Engagement Brian Tolley wrote in an email.Editors and social media managers play a bigger role in audience-building than other staffers.
Mallary Tenore, former managing editor of Poynter.org, said she doesn’t believe newspapers should require all staff to have social media accounts because people tend to have negative reactions to words such as “mandatory.”
Read more at AJR
Mallary Tenore, former managing editor of Poynter.org, said she doesn’t believe newspapers should require all staff to have social media accounts because people tend to have negative reactions to words such as “mandatory.”
Read more at AJR
Study: Colbert does a better job teaching people about campaign financing than traditional news sources
Viewers of “The Colbert Report” who watched faux-conservative TV host Stephen Colbert set up a super PAC and 501(c)(4) organization during the last presidential election cycle proved to be better informed about campaign financing and the role of money in politics than viewers of other news channels and shows, according to a new study.
Read more here
Read more here
Sunday, June 1
Everything you need to know about the future of newspapers is in these two charts
The decline in print-advertising revenue — which has been in free-fall for years now — is not stopping, or even slowing down, any time soon. If anything, it is likely to accelerate.
Read more at Gigaom
Read more at Gigaom
Friday, May 30
The New York Times ponders the bold changes needed for the digital age
Other newspapers regard the Times as a farsighted digital pioneer. It now claims 760,000 digital subscribers, and in recent months it has completed a sleek online makeover and launched new mobile apps. So if the Times is anxious, they should be too.
Read more at The Economist
Think Internet Data Mining Goes Too Far? Then You Won't Like This
These days, you can hop on the Internet and buy yourself a consumer-grade brain scanning device for just a few hundred dollars.
"By putting something on your head, you're actually providing an extra source of information," Bonaci says. The information leaking from your skull could be very revealing, she says. "The consequences of providing that signal without thinking about it are probably similar to the consequences of giving your DNA sample to some online database."
It sounds far-fetched, but.. the day may come when millions of people play online games while wearing BCIs. Whoever controls the game could play "20 Questions," measuring players' emotional responses to what they see.
"I could show political candidates and begin to understand your political orientation, and then sell that to pollsters."
Read more at NPR
"By putting something on your head, you're actually providing an extra source of information," Bonaci says. The information leaking from your skull could be very revealing, she says. "The consequences of providing that signal without thinking about it are probably similar to the consequences of giving your DNA sample to some online database."
It sounds far-fetched, but.. the day may come when millions of people play online games while wearing BCIs. Whoever controls the game could play "20 Questions," measuring players' emotional responses to what they see.
"I could show political candidates and begin to understand your political orientation, and then sell that to pollsters."
Read more at NPR
Why we need infographics and how to make them great
Storytelling is extremely important with data visualization and infographics. If there’s no story, then who cares? It’s just raw data. The story is what will set you apart. If it’s memorable and entertaining, then people will remember it.
Read more at The Next Web
Read more at The Next Web
Wednesday, May 28
new ways to pay your bills
New services to make spending money easier are springing up all the time. They are not confined to the rich world: in Kenya roughly 60% of adults—about the same number as have a bank account—use a mobile-phone payment service called M-PESA (see chart 4) And increasingly they cater to business customers too: services that integrate electronic invoicing and payments into a firm’s procurement and accounting system, or that help manage and raise working capital, are becoming commonplace.
Not surprisingly, the titans of the internet have started to eye up the payments business. Google offers a virtual wallet; Amazon recently set up a service to allow its customers to transfer money; Facebook and Apple have expressed interest in the field. There is much speculation that the latest iPhone’s ability to read fingerprints may be heralding a world-changing payment service. Telecoms companies (such as Safaricom, the firm behind M-PESA) and bricks-and-mortar merchants (Starbucks) are also dabbling in the field.
In China McKinsey expects it to increase by 42% a year between 2012 and 2017. Brazil is already the world’s second-biggest market for card transactions after the United States, according to Capgemini, another consultancy.
Consultants like to speak of “purchasing journeys” in which settling the bill is only the final step. Other waystations include advertising, internet search, participation in loyalty schemes and so on. Innovators, the thinking goes, could afford to undercut market prices for payments in anticipation of greater rewards at some other stage in the journey.
Read more at the Economist
Not surprisingly, the titans of the internet have started to eye up the payments business. Google offers a virtual wallet; Amazon recently set up a service to allow its customers to transfer money; Facebook and Apple have expressed interest in the field. There is much speculation that the latest iPhone’s ability to read fingerprints may be heralding a world-changing payment service. Telecoms companies (such as Safaricom, the firm behind M-PESA) and bricks-and-mortar merchants (Starbucks) are also dabbling in the field.
In China McKinsey expects it to increase by 42% a year between 2012 and 2017. Brazil is already the world’s second-biggest market for card transactions after the United States, according to Capgemini, another consultancy.
Consultants like to speak of “purchasing journeys” in which settling the bill is only the final step. Other waystations include advertising, internet search, participation in loyalty schemes and so on. Innovators, the thinking goes, could afford to undercut market prices for payments in anticipation of greater rewards at some other stage in the journey.
Read more at the Economist
Tuesday, May 27
Google Changes Logo - very slightly
Without fanfare, Google has changed its logo for only the third time in a decade – by just two pixels... From the company which famously a/b tested which shade of blue to use in adverts – and made $200m in the process – you can be sure the decision wasn't made lightly.
Read more at The Guardian
Read more at The Guardian
Thursday, May 22
Monday, May 19
New York Times Internal Report Painted Dire Digital Picture
The report also calls for a profound rethinking of the newsroom’s independence from the rest of the company, in order to involve editorial leaders more deeply in technological decisions.
“The very first step … should be a deliberate push to abandon our current metaphors of choice — ‘The Wall’ and ‘Church and State’ — which project an enduring need for division. Increased collaboration, done right, does not present any threat to our values of journalistic independence,” the report says.
Read more at Buzz Feed
“The very first step … should be a deliberate push to abandon our current metaphors of choice — ‘The Wall’ and ‘Church and State’ — which project an enduring need for division. Increased collaboration, done right, does not present any threat to our values of journalistic independence,” the report says.
Read more at Buzz Feed
The New York Times’ digital challenges, in 5 charts
Readership trends don’t favor the Times. Despite its dependence on print advertising, the paper is seeing its readers increasingly getting their news from the Internet. Half of all consumers went online for most of their news in 2013, while the percentage of those getting their news primarily from newspapers slid to under one-third. Despite that, the Times is stuck in a print-centric way of gathering and distributing the news.
Read more at Digiday
Read more at Digiday
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