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Social Mining
Posted 28th January 2009 at 10:40 PM by Steve Bennett
I have recently been asked to develop a new media strategy for the Sydney Symphony and as a result I am revisiting some old ground and finding new nuggets in the ever evolving internet. As proof I mention three of the emerging class of social mining services. Check out:
What is social mining I hear you say? Here's one definition I like:
And who is going to want this? Just about everyone who wants to make money on the web. More specifically (and in the words of Rapleaf) "retailers, telcos, political organizations, hotel chains, social networks, and other consumer facing companies".
Rapleaf claims to have processed over 350 million unique searches to date.
The really neat, emerging uses of social mining are experiments showing how large groups of people feel about particular topics, issues or events, with the aim of measuring the mood of the web.
If you are interested in something more cutting edge (read experimental) check out the felling finder wefeelfine. Start-up the applet and explore. It's a bit different from the SAS interface to say the least
None of this is likely to go mainstream this year in my opinion, but my gut tells me to keep an eye on the field. Click on the links above - it's worth it!
Enjoy.
What is social mining I hear you say? Here's one definition I like:
search services or activities performed to find information about people on the social web
And who is going to want this? Just about everyone who wants to make money on the web. More specifically (and in the words of Rapleaf) "retailers, telcos, political organizations, hotel chains, social networks, and other consumer facing companies".
Rapleaf claims to have processed over 350 million unique searches to date.
The really neat, emerging uses of social mining are experiments showing how large groups of people feel about particular topics, issues or events, with the aim of measuring the mood of the web.
If you are interested in something more cutting edge (read experimental) check out the felling finder wefeelfine. Start-up the applet and explore. It's a bit different from the SAS interface to say the least
None of this is likely to go mainstream this year in my opinion, but my gut tells me to keep an eye on the field. Click on the links above - it's worth it!
Enjoy.
Total Comments 2
Comments
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Interesting How Advanced These Tools Are
wefeelfine is a bit out there - but thanks for the heads-up about social mining.
I took a quick look at Rapleaf and I agree that this is one to watch. Do you know of others with actual services already in the market.Posted 29th January 2009 at 11:25 AM by Doug Heywood
- Facebook is adding more and more types of interaction. I wonder how successful the social mining sites will be in mining these new types of facebook interactions?
Will facebook restrict access for miners or will innovation triumph and the social miners get around the restrictions?
Quote:Facelift for Facebook
Correspondents in California | March 05, 2009
FACEBOOK now lets you have more than 5000 friends.
Starting next week, you can ignore the ones you're not that excited about.
The world's leading online social-networking service has unveiled a redesign that adds Twitter-like real-time chatter, better filtering of incoming information, and a platform for reaching mass audiences.
Facebook will begin shifting users to a new home page design on March 11 and posted a preview at the popular social-networking website for its famously change-wary users to check out.
"Our intuition is this is the right direction," Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said in disclosing the changes at the company's headquarters in Palo Alto, California.
"This isn't the last time we are going to change this. As long as the amount of people sharing information is going up, we know we are going in the right direction."
Fast-growing Facebook boasts more than 175 million members and Mr Zuckerberg believes that number will crest 200 million by the end of this year.
Facebook yesterday lifted a 5000-friend cap at the website, allowing people with large audiences to have their virtual voices heard instantly by unlimited numbers of fans.
Those signed up for the new Facebook profile pages at its launch include US President Barack Obama, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and rock band U2.
The change positions Facebook to try to make money with a feature that provides an online platform for people with brands to promote or messages to spread.
"There is a philosophical change; we want to converge all these different kinds of people on the website," Mr Zuckerberg said. "Bono, the New York Times, public figures and more have messages and want their voices heard by their audiences."
Facebook still lets users filter which friends get access to profile pages that typically hold personal information such as family photos, intimate thoughts and private phone numbers.
Changes announced, which include making the status update question "What's on your mind?" build on a theme in a Facebook home page redesign last year.
Mr Zuckerberg began the presentation by saying he "admires" work done by micro-blogging service Twitter and social-networking rival MySpace and that a clear trend is that people want to stream information quickly.
"Over the past five years, Facebook has evolved to make sharing information more efficient and to give people more control," Mr Zuckerberg said of the website he started in 2004.
"This year, we are going to continue making the flow of information even faster and more customised."
Mr Zuckerberg said he can envision Facebook eventually letting users use smartphones to find out at any given moment what their friends are up to.
The new home page lets people better filter messages or updates from those listed as "friends."
"You can decide you no longer want to get updates from your old friend from high school who you rarely talk to, or you can filter the stream to only see updates about your family members," Mr Zuckerberg said.
"And now, if you want, you can read what President Obama is saying on the same page as your best friend."
New profile pages rolled out for public figures and organisations are interactive, allowing Facebook users to post responses on the "walls" of the likes of Mr Sarkozy, Mr Obama, Bono, and talk-show celebrity Oprah Winfrey.
"Obama can post what he thinks of the new economic stimulus package and you can reply 'Awesome,'" Facebook director of product Chris Cox said.
The list of high-profile people who launched profile pages on Wednesday includes US governors Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sarah Palin and actor couple Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher.
"Just as you connect with friends on Facebook, you can now connect and communicate with celebrities, musicians, politicians and organisations," Mr Zuckerberg said.
"This means that you can find out that Oprah is reading a book backstage before a show, CNN posted a breaking story or U2 is working on a new song, just as you would see that your friend uploaded new photos from her trip."
AFPPosted 5th March 2009 at 06:39 PM by Steve Bennett
