Wednesday, June 06, 2012
Pinterest became an office topic...and my office is cited in The Search
My office hosted a conference for clients last Wednesday showcasing our research product. One of the analysts on another team mentioned that she tracks data from Google and Facebook. After her presentation, an intern (who will be a Senior at UVA) inquired if she collects data from Pinterest too. At this point, the girl went into detail about why she likes Pinterest and how great it is for her demographic. It really hit home how this form of social media is truly embraced by someone who is "next generation". This really validated (for me) the power of websites that I might otherwise dismiss as fads. Additionally, it was surprising to hear my company (formerly called Majestic Research) cited in The Search. Good times...
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I went to a media conference and heard that GE was using Pinterest. Then I came back to my office and asked my 20-year old intern to figure out Pinterest for us. She replied: "The only people who use that are girls getting ready for their weddings. It doesn't have the kind of cache among the "young people" as you have convinced yourself that it has." Thought it was interesting, then I made her make us a Pinterest site...
Yesterday the Washington Post reported that investment firms are increasingly using sources of unstructured data, such as Twitter and similar social media platforms, to inform trade conversations. Industry analyst Adam Honore revealed the percentage of investment firms has jumped from 2 to 50 percent over the past five years. Read the full article here: http://goo.gl/Z9FBS
In the discussion on Saturday, our classmate mentioned he sees a lot of hedge funds using google trends and google insights to confirm trade ideas. It's interesting to see how social media and marketing tools are used by financial services firms.
It's also interesting that the FT reported the same "dedicated Twitter" hedge fund featured in the Washington Post article, Derwent Capital, shut down in May after deciding to offer its social media indicators to day traders instead. Perhaps these indicators aren't the best predicators of the financial markets.
seems to me that being able to harness, codify and make accessible unstructured data is one of the greatest business opportunities arising from the internet.
Outside of the examples mentioned above, I've been working with several healthcare it businesses that use unstructured data from clinical narratives found in dictation audio files to help expedite physicians' decision making.
I have also seen it used by the public government and private security firms to track security threats and other forms of terrorism. probably no surprise.
The ability to extract and condense information from the web has nearly unlimited combinations and will likely make several of us rich people (if we can take advantage!)
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