Well, technology has surprised me yet again – Minority Report became a reality much faster than I thought possible. The splash that Google Glass made at SXSW last week is indicative of Google’s latest product taking us one step closer to new levels of personalization…and in turn, privacy concerns are intensifying as well. The March 16th installment of the Wall Street Journal Sentiment Tracker showed that social media users on Facebook and Twitter are indeed divided on this newest innovation; [...]

This holiday season has taking our number of social engagements to a whole new level. This past weekend, we had four different destinations on the schedule, and luckily I had my trusty iPhone in hand to navigate us from one locale to the other. Long gone (and not a moment too soon) are the days where we unfold and puzzle over a real map, or even print directions out from a website. While I was taken aback by the UI [...]

Oh, there is interest in Pinterest, the visual social sharing site. But is the site that, in its first month, became the #1 source for referring web traffic (over Google+, Reddit, and LinkedIn combined) a “colossal waste of time,” and “only good as a platform for scrap-booking,” or will its “stellar design” help it keep moving it into the #2 social site? A few interesting findings to make you sound smarter at the water-cooler: The conversation is US-centric – Over [...]

I got my first pair of glasses at the tender age of 5, and as soon as I was green-lighted for contacts at age 11, I never looked back. Barring shades on a sunny day, I do my best to stay away from glasses…so I’m not sure how I feel about the announcement of Project Glass, Google’s latest innovation of social-media-savvy eyewear.  The April 7th installment of the Wall Street Journal Sentiment Tracker looked at the response from Facebook and [...]

When the new Google privacy policy was announced last week, I knew there was no chance I’d have time to read through it and take in all of the changes. Luckily, this was the subject of January 28th’s installment of the Wall Street Journal Sentiment Tracker, so I got to see what people chatting on social media, the world’s largest focus group, had to say about Google’s privacy policy.  Powered by NetBase, the Sentiment Tracker showed that while 55% of [...]

Last week, I had the pleasure of meeting with Rachael King, an extraordinary journalist from Bloomberg BusinessWeek, who has been working on a story on sentiment analysis. Thanks to Seth Grimes of Alta Plana, Rachael and I got the chance to sit down and talk about everything from NetBase to diapers, beer, and iPads. Being the roving reporter that she is, Rachael asked for a custom Brand Passion Index on the big tech companies about which Bloomberg routinely writes. Our [...]