Monthly Archives: February 2008

Mentalism

Posted on February 28, 2008 by

Here’s a set of insights from John Bryant.  They are particularly potent considering the upheaval in media, news, politics and pop culture.  We often appeal to mentalistic terminology to understand and explain the complexity of behavior at play on our … Continue reading →

Posted in analysis of behavior | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

CaPiTal lEtTers and !punctuation,;.?! Where have you gone?

Posted on February 27, 2008 by

Somewhere along the way I lost capital letters and periods in my emails, IMs and other documents. People started to notice. Where did they go? Blackberry, Office 2007, and other software took them from me! That’s right! Authoring software for … Continue reading →

Posted in analysis of behavior, software | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Academy Award Viewership Issues

Posted on February 26, 2008 by

John Bryant observes: A combination of factors affecting this year’s Academy Awards viewership show on Sunday: Gruesome /dark nature of many of the top films up for awards Number of non-traditional film subjects Writer’s strike got us away from TV … Continue reading →

Posted in economics, hollywood | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

The Accidental Oscar?

Posted on February 26, 2008 by

John Bryant writes: At the 80th Academy Awards Sunday Feb. 24th, 2008, an actress stood up and said that her award is an “accident” because she didn’t know how she got up there to receive her Oscar. No one can … Continue reading →

Posted in analysis of behavior, hollywood | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Netflix Prize – I’m Going For It

Posted on February 24, 2008 by

In October of 2006, Netflix released a $1,000,000 contest to improve their rating prediction/movie recommendation algorithms.  No one has won the prize yet (surprisingly). I read the latest wired mag (i know, i know) which featured a contestant.  I’m easily … Continue reading →

Posted in analysis of behavior, business strategy, data mining, economics, science prizes, social networks | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Does Internet Traffic Offer Any Political Guidance?

Posted on February 23, 2008 by

Consider the Democratic Primaries. Do we see any predictive power in internet traffic? Quantcast Demographic Info: Hillary Barack Compete.com: Hillary vs. Barack Alexa: Check here.  Quantcast: Conclusion: It’s tricky! however, I think we need to normalize the traffic by demographic … Continue reading →

Posted in business strategy, data mining, economics, politics | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

The Video Advertising Myth

Posted on February 23, 2008 by

Yeah, it’s all the rage in agency/vc/online publisher land but Online Video and Online Video ads is not going to get very many people rich really quickly, not like search ads and domain squatting. Yes, youtube and other video outlets … Continue reading →

Posted in business strategy, economics, hollywood, traffic | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Change the measurement – Media’s Second Law of Thermodynamics

Posted on February 19, 2008 by

In my last post, I pointed out the inevitability of entropy and energy consumption in media businesses. Well, you can’t avoid, but you might want to know how I spot it when the entropy is costing money? Change the measurement. … Continue reading →

Posted in business strategy, economics | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Media’s Second Law of Thermodynamics

Posted on February 16, 2008 by

“Why did you {them, this company, those guys, that company, this group} do this?” Yup, that’s the first – maybe second – question any consultant or new hire in a media company asks.  The hope is to find some easily … Continue reading →

Posted in analysis of behavior, business strategy | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Social Networks Problem Solving Paradigms and Best Network Layout

Posted on February 5, 2008 by

Here’s a terse little paper and experiment showing some clean (easy to understand and rework) results. DISCUSSION Past research on the benefits of network structure on the flow of information has often focused on the positive properties of small-world networks … Continue reading →

Posted in analysis of behavior, data mining, information theory, social networks | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments