From the Old-But-Interesting News Department:
The WSJ has an interesting article on market research. Essentially, researchers use blog “chatter” to determine product interest and opinion. They can monitor searches and keyword use and compare with ad campaigns. The technique is referred to as “online anthropology,” and it kinda reminds me of a Sim City type of environment, except the people are real. A large number of people can be given stimuli and the results evaluated. One of the monitoring companies has algorhythms that determine “demographics based on language, subject matter and acronyms.”
Interestingly, the CIA and other intelligence services have a hand in this, providing funding for the same natural language processing that is used to monitor newspapers. If you think Big Brother isn’t listening…
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