Bing advertises itself as a “decision engine” rather than a search engine and claims to help users avoid “search overload syndrome.” Online consumers didn’t comment on that, but they do like Bing’s great home page photos and funny commercials (for the most part). On the down side, they’re not raving about the search results Bing delivers. There was no “About Bing” on the Bing website, so here’s some background information from the Wikipedia entry: Bing (formerly Live Search, Windows Live Search, [...]

Yesterday was the first day of summer, so the kids are out of school, the temperature is sky-rocketing (is anyone else melting?) and… it’s now officially wedding season. And though I opted to say my own “I Do’s” on the first day of spring, I have spent many a summer night watching the cutting of the cake or the bouquet toss. With all the romance and magic of the Royal Wedding and Kate’s highly anticipated – and completely stunning – [...]

Last week, we were lucky enough to be joined by Professor Rob Kozinets, considered to be the father of netnography, while he led the sixth installment of our 11 for ’11 Webinar Series, this time focusing on “The Netnography Revolution”. Despite some minor technical difficulties, we had an extremely successful webinar and heard fantastic feedback from attendees – one who tweeted that it was the best 11 for ’11 she’s attended yet! Click here to check out Ray Poynter’s review [...]

Our Natural Language Processing (NLP) understanding is almost always right. But now and then, due to nuances and complexities in the English language, the results you see may not always be. So, we added the ability to easily fix anything our NLP engine didn’t get right. If you see something wrong in a chart you can simply “Right-Click” on the Insight and make it right. In the example below, the Workbench classified “kill Osama” as a negative associated with Obama. [...]

Trend spotting is something I’ve often heard researchers say they want to do. In fact, if you’re a futurist or a practitioner of the Lead User method, then trend spotting is a necessary part of what you do. I’ve got a few ideas for how to spot trends that leverage social media. One idea is based on a linguistic pattern I’ve noticed when people discuss trends. Here are some examples: “Keeping distance between the car ahead of you and coasting as [...]

With Father’s Day right around the corner, I’ve had time to reflect on all the great Dads in my life…and time to think about how I can possibly find a gift that shows how much I appreciate them. Even though said Dads, along with yours truly, have long since abandoned a wristwatch in favor of using a cell phone to tell time, watches remain a top pick for Father’s Day gifts. June is also the month for graduations, and even [...]

To write this netnography, we analyzed thousands of posts from consumers about Applebee’s and identified the top positive and negative themes. The large-scale analysis is performed by a natural language processing (NLP) engine, then refined by human sampling. Applebee’s has some effective differentiators—Carside to Go Service and Weight Watchers menu items—but, according to consumers, needs to implement them consistently. The chain is based in Lenexa, Kansas, and is the world’s largest casual dining chain, with approximately 2,000 locations in 49 [...]