YouTube trends map

YouTube Trends map

YouTube has a new feature called "Trends Map" that allows you to see what people in different parts of the country are watching.

Here is the YouTube trendsmap site:
http://www.youtube.com/trendsmap

And here is an article describing the new feature:
http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2013/05/11/youtubes-trends-map-shows-popular-videos-by-geographic-location/

"Predatory journals" in science

Interesting NYTimes article today about a disturbing phenomenon in academic research:  "predatory" journals and conferences that charge (unadvertised) fees for publication.  

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/08/health/for-scientists-an-exploding-world-of-pseudo-academia.html?smid=pl-share

David Brooks' "The Philosophy of Data"

David Brooks says "the philosophy of the day is data-ism."

Read more at

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/05/opinion/brooks-the-philosophy-of-data.html?smid=pl-share

The Role of Data Analysis in "Get Out The Vote" Operations

In this article in The Atlantic, Ben Jacobs describes the failures of the Romney campaign's "ORCA" software platform.  ORCA was supposed to help the campaign identify which likely Romney voters had already cast their ballots.   Thus, they could focus get-out-the-vote operation resources on voters who hadn't gone to the polls yet. 
It turns out that the Obama campaign had tried something similar in 2008, and that system had also crashed.   The Obama campaign learned its lesson from this experience. They came to the conclusion that such an election day system was not feasible.   For 2012 they went with a system called "Narwhal" that targeted likely voters before election day. 

So in a sense the Romeny campaign was on cycle behind from a technical perspective -- they learned a lesson that the Obama campaign had learned 4 years earlier. 

Nate Silver and Big Data

There are a host of post-election stories on Nate Silver's success in using statistical analyses to predict the outcome of the election overall as well as the the outcome of voting on a state by state basis.  For example, in this article from InformationWeek, Eric Lundquist ruminates on how to apply Silver's success to business.

If you are interested in the nuts and bolts of how Silver uses data to make predictions, here are a few links from Silver's blog on the New York Times site.  One is an explanation of his methodology, the other a glossary of terms:

• http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/methodology/
• http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/glossary/

Or, you can go right to the source and read Silver's book The Signal and the Noise:

Two Congressional Investigations Into Activities of Data Companies

 There are now two Congressional investigations being held regarding the activities of data gathering companies.  One investigation is targeting so called "data sellers" while the other is targeting similary termed "data brokers."   Both investigations are targeting some of the same companies. 

The "data sellers" investigation is being run by Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massashusetts, and Representative Joe L. Barton, Republican of Texas.  The investigation was prompted by this article on data gethering company Acxiom in the New York Times and targets companies such as Acxiom and Experian.

The "data brokers" investigation was opened this week by Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, and targets some of the same companies as the other investigation.

You can read more about the investigations at the links below:

 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/11/technology/senator-opens-investigation-of-data-brokers.html?smid=pl-share

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/25/technology/congress-opens-inquiry-into-data-brokers.html?_r=1

http://commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=a42a865a-be30-4171-8278-86ee0a8c76fb

Visualization of what AT&T's network looked like on 9/11/01

CNN has a slideshow of graphs that show what AT&T network traffic looked on the days on which events initiated a  high volume of calls and texts. Included are visualizations of network traffic on 9/11/01 as well as the days on which the East Coast Earthquake and  Hurricane Katrina occurred.

See the article on the CNN site:

http://money.cnn.com/gallery/technology/mobile/2012/10/09/mobile-network-traffic/index.html