The New York Times Business section reports:
We’re in the midst of a boom in devices that show where people are
at any point in time. Global positioning systems are among the hottest
consumer electronics devices ever … All of these devices churn out
data that says something about how people live. Such data could
redefine what we know about consumer behavior, giving businesses early
insight into economic trends, better ways to determine sites for
offices and retail stores, and more effective ways to advertise …It’s
hard to make sense of such data, but Sense Networks, a software
analytics company in New York, earlier this month released Macrosense,
a tool that aims to do just that. Macrosense applies complex
statistical algorithms to sift through the growing heaps of data about
location and to make predictions or recommendations on various
questions — where a company should put its next store, for example … The Macrosense tool lets companies engage in “reality mining,” a phrase coined by Sandy Pentland, an M.I.T. researcher who was also a co-founder of Sense and now advises it on privacy issues. Sense is not the only company engaged in reality mining. Inrix, a Microsoft
spin-off, uses traffic data to predict traffic patterns. Path
Intelligence of Britain monitors traffic flow in shopping centers by
tracking cellphones.
Not so long ago universities were closing down their geography departments. For my money GIS, (geographic information systems, high-tech mapping data and software) looks like it has to be one of the hottest fields around.
June 22nd, 2008 at 4:01 pm
Every time I read an article like this, I bang my head and ask why no one was paying attention 5 years ago when geographers were doing this. Time/Space cubes anyone? Transportation modeling?
June 22nd, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Universities are skilled at closing down departments at the wrong time. U. Chicago closed down its #1-rated “Library Science” department, just before “Library Science” became “Information Science”. So there is no surprise about Geography departments. Other departments being closed by Universities include Education and Religious Studies. Obviously neither is needed in this know-it-all, secular world!
June 23rd, 2008 at 10:30 am
Well this isn’t the same as transportation modeling or time/space cubes. Given that the Reality Mining group is involved, I’d guess that it has something to do with (at the very least) mining mobile phone data is pseudo-real-time to identify recurring locations in the user’s trajectories and then share those anonymously with other users. Kind of a different scale of collection, analysis, and feedback.
June 23rd, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Time to read Orwell again!
June 23rd, 2008 at 2:45 pm
“Such data could redefine what we know about consumer behavior, giving businesses early insight into economic trends, better ways to determine sites for offices and retail stores”
Fred Meyer, a legendary Portland retailer whose brand is now on stores around the Pacific Northwest, was famous for picking store locations. In the 1930’s parking tickets were a nickel and your wrote your name and address on them when you paid. Customers could bring their ticket’s into Fred’s downtown store and he would pay them — after gathering the addresses. His second store went where the highest concentration of his customers lived.
Le plus the change…