Mass Opinion Business Intelligence uses Facebook and Twitter

Mass Opinion Business Intelligence is one of the up and coming tools businesses have been using to evaluate customers’ opinions. Kia Motors is one of the companies that have begun to use this technology to gage customer sentiments. Mass Opinion Business Intelligence examines posts through blogs, Twitter, and Facebook to determine how the customer feels about a product, service, or marketing campaign. This technology allows companies to look at “real time” opinions so companies have an accurate idea towards customer sentiment. This technology does not simply examine the text of the posts; it goes even further in an attempt to examine the tone to each message (King).
WiseWindow is a company that specializes in Mass Opinion Business Intelligence. Recently, they have been looking into the airline industry. They discovered through customer opinions, that Southwest’s new advertising campaign is not as effective as their previous one. WiseWindow determined through their technology that Southwest’s campaign “Bags Fly Free” was a much more effective campaign, by examining customers’ opinions on sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Through this technology companies can gather even more insights into customers’ behavior (King). WiseWindow stated that soup companies were able to determine that their competition did not solely rest with other soup companies. They were able to determine that an alternative to eating soup at lunch was fast food (WiseWindow).
When examining public opinions for most companies negative statements from customers are a sign that sales will decrease. However, this circumstance does not apply to everyone, such as music artists. Even if there is negative public opinion circulating about them, their sales will still increase (King). Companies such as WiseWindow help sift through the opinions that will have a negative impact on sales. WiseWindow also helps companies to determine when a new marketing campaign begins to affect sales. They claimed that a beverage company was able to tell that their new marketing campaign was effective weeks before the numbers showed up in the sales simply due to gathering information from social media websites (WiseWindow).
Mass Opinion Business Intelligence is allowing companies to receive immediate feedback from customers even without them knowing it. I believe that the demand for this technology is going to greatly increase over the next couple of years. Social media sights such as Facebook and Twitter are used so frequently that companies can gather a lot of extremely useful information about their customers’ views. Kia Motors wants to change the public’s opinion on their products. They are seen as an automobile manufacturer that provides efficient and cheap cars, however they also want their customers’ to think that their products have a cool design with new technology. Through MOBI technology Kia will be able to see if their marketing and product changes are getting the results that they wanted (King). The best part of this technology is its ability to determine the tone of the posts. I think that by examining masses of these messages companies are going to gain a lot of insight into their customers’ wants and needs.


Works Cited

King , Rachael. "Sentiment Analysis Gives Companies Insight Into Consumer Opinion." Businessweek 01 Mar 2011: n. pag. Web. 21 Mar 2011. .

"The WiseWindow Story." WiseWindow. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Mar 2011. .

High-tech apps help drivers evade police

In order to evade new incriminating technology, used by law enforcement to catch illegal acts when they are not around, the general public has turned to a new technology of its own. Phone, computer, and GPS applications have been developed that can detect the cameras in red lights and speed zones. While some police officers are against these applications, others believe they will make drivers more alert and aware while they are driving.

            It can be argued that these new features even the playing field for drivers, but it can also be argued that they are very dangerous. Law enforcement is spending a lot of money to catch driver breaking the law, even when they are present. James Vlahos says, “In the era of computer-controlled surveillance, your every move could be captured by cameras, whether you’re shopping in the grocery store or driving on the freeway.” Many people feel cheated by these technologies and it is likely that a large number will start using the applications that combat them. However, in order to use these applications they will have to be paying attention to their electronics while driving. This can cause problems, as they will be distracted from the road.

            According to GoMo news, “Chetan Sharma Consulting (with a little help from GetJar) has predicted that the number of mobile apps downloads will increase from more than 7 billion downloads in 2009 to 50 billion in 2012.” The size and growth of the app world is difficult to grasp until we see applications as diverse PhantomAlert, which can be downloaded to detect speed and red light cameras. If we are using apps to evade law enforcement, the possibilities for their uses are endless. With these new applications the question of app regulation comes into play. Should companies allow these apps to be used and sold for their products, if they could perhaps cause some harm like undermining police? As the app world grows, it will be more and more difficult to control. People should begin to question at what point apps stop being a positive thing that make life easier, and start to be only about making money.

            Electronic applications are also starting to use social networking to their advantage. Trapster is an application that provides counter-law information based on what is submitted by other users. Similarly, PhantomAlert alerts drivers about DUI checkpoints that are reported to them from drivers who use their application. It seems that these applications are making it easier for people to work together in opposition of law enforcement, and it is giving them another platform to do so.

            It is difficult to discern when the line between useful and harmful is being crossed. For many people who actively develop these apps, they are only worried about profit, and often don’t care about the full long-term effects. I would not say that these applications used to counter new police technology are necessarily bad; there are policemen who are in favor of the apps. However, they should definitely be monitored. Today, almost anything is possible, and everything is right out our fingertips. The original purpose of apps was to make our lives easier. If we are not careful, apps will soon become more of a burden.

Copeland, Larry. "High-tech Apps Help Drivers Evade Police - USATODAY.com." News, Travel, Weather, Entertainment, Sports, Technology, U.S. & World - USATODAY.com. Web. 21 Mar. 2011. <http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-03-21-1Ascofflaw21_ST_N.htm>.

Dennis, Tony. "Growth in Mobile Apps May Have Hidden Dangers." GoMo News. 18 Mar. 2011. Web. 21 Mar. 2011

Dennis, Tony. "Growth in Mobile Apps May Have Hidden Dangers." GoMo News. 18 Mar. 2011. Web. 21 Mar. 2011

Vlahos, James. "Surveillance Society: New High-Tech Cameras Are Watching You - Popular Mechanics." Automotive Care, Home Improvement, Tools, DIY Tips - Popular Mechanics. 1 Oct. 2009. Web. 21 Mar. 2011. <http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military/4236865>.

What is on your “mynd”?

Neuromarketing to change the world of advertising

Welcome to 2011: a year when, according to Larry Dignan, “advertising [just] got creepier” (zdnet.com). Introduced circa 2002, but not widely accepted, neuromarketing combines neuroscience and marketing to observe consumer behaviors through brain mapping. NeuroFocus is now presenting a gadget called the Mynd (picture above) (zdnet.com). This wireless device is modeled off the typical EEG headset, minus the necessity of gel for the sensors, and is used to scan brainwave activity across the entire consumer noggin. With its ability to connect with Apple’s IPads and IPhones and other Blue tooth devices, the Mynd is revolutionizing into a “portable brain scanner” (fastcompany.com). Portability opens the door for new testing environments beyond the lab, which often unnerves test subjects. In theory, researchers envision the Mynd to be used at home, outdoors, and in public venues. It is even predicted that data collected from this emerging technology will be able to be shared through social networks sites, such as Facebook. This device has the potential to serve as a huge competitive advantage for any company that invests: hopping onto the bandwagon and into the consumer mind. But why are advertising companies so interested in the Mynd? Because they are very much interested in seeing what is going on in ours.

The Mynd has the capability to monitor consumers’ responses to advertising techniques and media concepts. Thus, allowing the advertising companies “to gain critical knowledge and insights into how consumers perceive their brands, products, packaging, in-store marketing, and advertising at the deep subconscious level in real time” according to Dr. A. K. Pradeep, CEO of NeuroFocus (zdnet.com). Advertisers will now be able to eliminate bad data collected through consumer surveys (I think we all can admit to our own minor discretions on while filling out product review forms) to improve their strategies and better implement their business goals. The Mynd puts the power is in their hands, and on our heads, to delve deep into the consumer psyche. If effective, companies will be giving us what we don’t even know we want! Creepy is right. Clearly the goal is to improve product lines and the advertising of these products to be more attractive to consumer. I’ll be curious to see if the Mynd could be used to stimulate, perhaps even 180, a struggling economy.

Larry Dignan leaves his readers with a final thought of the beneficial possibilities of the Mynd in management, especially come time for bottom-up management reviews. The Mynd would pick up on what subordinates really thought about upper management, leaving no room for lies and inefficiencies. Perhaps Loyola and other universities will consider adopting the Mynd technology for conducting Professor and course reviews at the end of the semester- especially after online reviews proved inefficient this past Fall semester.

I find it debatable whether or not this technology could cross the line as invasion of privacy because thoughts we don’t even know we are thinking are being taken from our subconscious mind. Personally, I am not too sure how eager I would ever be to strap on a Mynd.

Works Cited

Dignan, Larry. (2011, March 21). Get ready for neuromarketing: advertising just got creepier. Retrieved from http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/get-ready-for-neuromarketing-advertising-just-got-creepier/46305?tag=content;selector-blogs

Zax, David. (2011, March 21). Thinking cap: "mynd" is the first dry, iphone-compatible, portable brain scanner. Retrieved from http://www.fastcompany.com/1741403/mynd-neuromarketing-ipad-iphone-neurofocus-brain-scan

Ohlden, Anna. (2011, March 21). Neurofocus announces world's first wireless full-brain eeg measurement headset: mynd(tm). Retrieved from http://www.science20.com/newswire/neurofocus_announces_worlds_first_wireless_fullbrain_eeg_measurement_headset_myndtm-77370

Cell Phones give hotel guests the upper hand

It’s hard for our generation to remember a time without cell phones, but the hotel industry sure misses those days. In a world without any personal telephones, hotel guests were forced into using the overpriced room telephones. Now, virtually no one uses those phones because they are too expensive and everyone has a cell phone anyway, and that is seriously cutting into the hotel industry’s profits. This is only a small part of the growing epidemic of switching from landlines to cell phones, with current companies such as AT&T and Verizon losing revenues on their landlines.

In the prehistoric days of no cell phones (1980s and early 1990s) hotel phones were estimated to generate 2% of profit, but now with cell phones, the cost of the room phone is three times as much as the benefit. There may be the suggestion to simply rid of landlines all together, in hotels and in homes. However, this is not logistically possible due to safety concerns. If there were an emergency, a phone needs to be in the room. Also for non-emergencies such as wake-up calls and room service, the room phones are of use. Jim Abrahamson, who runs InterContinental Hotels' operations in the Americas, said, “It’s too early to call the death of the phone.” But that doesn’t mean its getting there, and it doesn’t mean that other things are headed in that direction as well. Pay-per-view movies are slowly being replaced by cheaper options on laptops and other devices.

In another article, Jennifer Horton discusses this phenomenon and points out how pay phones have almost become obsolete, except for in airports, and landlines may soon be on their way. As of late 2007, 16% of U.S. households had no landline at all, compared to just 5% in 2004. In New York and New Jersey, landline usage rates are down 50% or more. Even businesses are ditching their landlines for more economical options, like WiFi and VoIP(voice over Internet protocol). Such companies as Ford cite many benefits including saving money on local and long-distance phone charges, freeing people up from their desks and preventing having to lay new cables. At these increasing rates, it’s difficult to dispute an inevitable end to landlines all together.

I think most of us have already considered this concept, but to me the actual numbers are staggering. I was aware that cell phone usage has overcome landlines, but in my mind, most homes still had them even if they did not rely on them. The fact that they are declining completely at such a quick rate is surprising. Also, it is hard to fathom the predicament that hotel industry is in because they are not able to get rid of the room phone, but at the same time, they are costing them much valuable profit. I agree with Abrahamson in that I do not think the phone is ready for its funeral, because I think there are still some old-fashioned folks who will keep it around for a while longer, but I cannot argue the alarming statistics and think with the coming generations will come a change in our reliance on cell phones rather than landlines.

Works Cited:

Chernikoff, Helen. "Cellphones Give Hotel Guests the Upper Hand | Reuters." Reuters. 16 Mar. 2011. Web. 20 Mar. 2011. .

Horton, Jennifer. "Will the Landline Phone Become Obsolete?" Howstuffworks "Electronics" Web. 20 Mar. 2011. .

“Simplicity Wins”: Mobile Research & Advertising

In times of crisis, whether it was Haiti after its earthquake or recently Japan in the aftermath of its own earthquake and tsunami and nuclear reactor abnormalities, people around the world selflessly lend a helping hand to those who are affected by such devastation. Tons of food, water, clothing, are donated as well as monetary donations pour in. Last year, the Red Cross offered a solution: text the word “Haiti” to 90999. The Red Cross is now offering their service of “Text2Help” by texting “REDCROSS” to 90999 to help the victims in Japan. A donation can be made from any place you get a signal and you don’t have to enter in a lot of information to give a quick and meaningful gift. By accepting donations through the mobile sphere, the Red Cross can reach a wider audience during times of disaster when support is needed immediately. Supporters are not limited to writing a check and putting their gift in the mail nor having immediate computer access and entering in credit card information the donation can be made instantly from a mobile phone. This is when it became clear to most of those in the realm of business that text-messaging could work for them too.

A company named Zoove has been available to AT&T and Verizon users since last summer but intend to extend their services soon to both Sprint and T-Mobile cellular systems as well. Zoove has developed a system called StarStar (**) which allows a string of 2 to 12 letters that can identify companies or their products. As opposed to texting a message, the customer dials ** followed by the companies registry and will receive a voice or text message in return. For example, if a customer is looking for girl scout cookies they can type **GSCOOKIES which advises the caller to download a map of where girl scout cookies can be purchased. Joseph Gillespie, president and CEO of Zoove, states, “We now work on 95 percent of all U.S. mobile phones.” The StarStar systems also aids in data mining for companies. This includes data collected on location mainly. A user who dial **TAXI could receive a text with the three closest companies or advertisers could tailor their promotions to the designated region. The amount of data mined from the dials that people make would be invaluable to marketers. Zoove promotes it technology based on its simplicity, Mr. Gillespie says, “Our thesis is that simplicity wins.”

According to recent surveys, we are given a notion that smartphones will surpass computers in 2012 and that by 2013 cell phones will be the most common device accessing the web. This makes it so understandable that marketers are investing in mobile advertising; it will be the best way to reach consumers. Contrary to most belief, Search is the most common activity by mobile web users followed closely by social networking. Further, a recent study by Harris Interactive shows that nearly half of mobile app users click on ads accidentally. Also mobile apps do not have a generation gap, they are popular amongst all ages. The study showed that 2/3 of mobile app users selected ads that had coupons or deals as their preferred in-app mobile ad type. This has many important implications for marketers, mainly that they should look into in-app advertising seriously. Dunkin Donuts and Burger King have both successfully implemented this type of in-app advertising deals or discounts. When Dunkin Donuts advertised a free deal, most users saw this and drove over.

As a personal user of a smartphone I can see this type of advertising becoming essential to any companies marketing strategy. With the more and more time I spend on my phone, whether it be for work or for personal use, seeing a coupon for Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts could never hurt. It would actually make me want to take initiative and go use it. With such strong growth in the smartphone market and the increasing sales of the iPad and tablets, mobile advertising will soon become an essential part of companies marketing plan.

Works Cited

Taub, Eric A. "Zoove, a Mobile Start-Up, Aims to Upstage Text-Messaging - NYTimes.com." A Guide to the Media Industry - Media Decoder Blog - NYTimes.com. 13 Mar. 2011. Web. 16 Mar. 2011. .

"Technologies in Market Research: Mobile Research." Web log post. Luminosity Marketing. 07 Jan. 2010. Web. 16 Mar. 2011. .

"Text2Help Faqs." American Red Cross. Web. 16 Mar. 2011. .

"What Matters Now: Mobile Advertising." Luminosity Marketing. 23 Feb. 2011. Web. 16 Mar. 2011. .

Smart Phone Security

In the past few years, innovations in mobile phone technology—a technology that has been readily available for only the past decade—have already developed and produced a new age mobile phone. They call it the smartphone. “In a nutshell, a smartphone is a device that lets you make telephone calls, but also adds in features that you might find on a personal digital assistant or a computer.”(Cassavoy) One can now perform tasks on a mobile phone, such as send and receive emails, browse the Internet and even upload and edit documents. The most incredible feature about the smartphone, however, is its use of applications, or “apps”—access to various programs from a single box on the home screen of a smartphone. Developers produce these apps at such a high rate that not all apps available to the market prove secure. A recent outbreak of apps containing malicious coding has infected scores of smartphones. The effective use of IT by the companies that produce these smartphones has helped crack down on these breaches in security, and the companies hope to secure their software and prevent future plagues of software bugs.

“Tens of thousands of users of Android-based smartphones have downloaded applications capable of taking over their phones with malicious software designed to steal data or send expensive messages, security experts have warned.”(Menn) The Android smartphone, developed by Google, allows each company to have its own build of the Android operating system. This allows for the complete customization of user interface, graphics and branding based upon various company goals and objectives (Lemos). Without one uniform operating system, security for the Android technology can hardly encompass the various tweaks added by the respective companies that make the Android. In the past year, a total of 58 applications have been discovered to contain malicious coding that could potentially infect an Android. Google, upon analyzing the problem, discovered that over 260,000 Android phones have suffered infection from this malware. Google has recently performed a “clean-up” that destroyed harmful packages within the dirty applications. "Google's fix removes the actual packages that exploited the flaw, but doesn't fix the underlying vulnerability," says Kevin Mahaffey, chief technology officer at mobile security firm Lookout, which has analyzed the malware (Lemos).

To properly fix a phone requires hardware makers to create their own updates that include Google’s fix. These updates must be pushed to the various carriers, who must also test the hardware before selling it to the customer. In the personal computer industry, however, software makers generally release updates and fixes more quickly. “Automated software updates have become necessary features of applications and operating systems, and are typically applied frequently.”(Lemos) PC and Mac users generally experience fewer problems with the ability to constantly “check-up” on their device, and solve the problem much faster if a problem does in fact arise. Google, and smartphone developers in general, continue to search for a way to incorporate this personal computer technology onto their phones. "From a security standpoint, the more automated this stuff is, the greater the penetration of the patching will be and the better off everyone will be," says Tom Cross, a security researcher with IBM (Lemos). IT workers for companies such as Google continue to search for compatible hardware and software that will allow for such a thing.

Works Cited

Cassavoy, Liane. "What Is a Smart Phone." About.com. The New York Times Company, 2011. Web. 21 Mar 2011. .

Lemos , Robert. "Securing All Androids Proves Tricky." Technology Review 17 Mar 2011: 1-2. Web. 21 Mar 2011. .

Menn, Joseph. "Android Users Hit By Malware Attacks." Financial Times 3 Mar 2011: 2. Web. 21 Mar 2011.