Traveling is one of my favorite things to do, so I explored how data mining might affect this activity. I was interested to find out the travel industry is using data mining as much as any other. While any service provider uses data mining to create higher
profits they are also using it to better serve customers.
By tracking
behavior patterns of all clients and by individual IP addresses or customer IDs,
service can be in a way, customized. The travel industry focuses on predictive analysis for future trips. The analysis can be created by the manipulation of the massive amounts of data collected. The predictions of what customers want allows them to cater to that and increase sales and therefore profits.
Patterns found in analysis of travel data can allow companies to identify groups of similar customers. Groups could be those that who travel only based on price or others that are set on specific destinations. This type of information along with your unique preferences like only flying first class and only staying at boutique hotels will help build the recommendations that online travel booking sites like Expedia use.
Just as our group explained in our presentation grocery store reward cards and frequent flyer numbers help to track customers and create these profiles. The nature of the traveling industry means that its customers are often moving, and regardless of which branch of a hotel they are staying in data mining creates the ability to track the preferences of their customers. The ability to cater to a customers wants creates a happy customer who will visit this establishment again.
As we have asked before are we willing to share all of this information? Do we know that others have it? What is more important privacy or convenience?
Source and further reading:
http://www.executivetravelmagazine.com/articles/how-data-mining-impacts-your-travel
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Insurance DENIED
In summary, this article talks
about “reward” cards. We save money using these reward cards at the time of
purchase. The different stores that offer these receive money because they can
sell all the data collected when swiping the card. Different companies for
different reasons would buy this information. An example in the article is
about a car dealer maybe wanting this information because if you buy expensive
meats and wine, you might be more inclined to buy a more expensive car. Another
example in that stuck me is that insurance companies will buy this information.
They might buy the information to track what you eat, and if you buy a lot of
fatty foods or beer they might determine you as a high risk client and charge
you a higher premium compared to someone else; or deny you insurance period.
With the beer example, I don’t think one purchase will hurt you, it was
mentioned in the article if you buy it six times a week it could become a
problem.
I’m not exactly sure how I feel
about this? I have mixed feelings either way I go. What do you guys think?
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Big Data On Campus
With 72,000 students, A.S.U. is both the
country’s largest public university and a hotbed of data-driven experiments.
One core effort is a degree-monitoring system that keeps tabs on how students
are doing in their majors. Stray off-course and a student may have to switch
fields, so this system suggests alternatives courses match with your interest
and field.
If they fail to sign up for a key course or do
well enough, the computer cracks a whip, marking them “off-track.” Wander
off-track two semesters in a row, and a student may have to change majors.
If that sounds harsh, there’s a rationale: One
way to ensure that students will reach the finish line is to quickly figure out
if they’ve selected a suitable track. So the A.S.U. system front-loads key
courses. For example, to succeed in psychology, a student must perform well in
statistics.
At Arizona State, algorithms figure in course
content, too. Thousands of A.S.U. students now take math courses through a
system that mines performance and behavioral data, building a profile on each
user and delivering recommendations about what learning activity they should do
next. The system, created by the start-up company Knewton, has given the
university a fresh way of addressing the continuous problem of students being
unprepared for college math. But it also offers a glimpse into what many more
students will experience as teaching increasingly shifts from textbooks and lectures that feed the same
structure of information to a class of 300, regardless of individual expertise,
to machines that study their users’ learning patterns and adapt to them.
So do you think all these countless hours of
online Homework really worth it?
At Rio Salado, a community college with about
70,000 students, 43,000 of them online, Mr. Lange got excited about the
behavioral data students leave behind: the vast wake of clicks captured by
software that runs Web courses. Records of when they logged in opened a
syllabus, turned in homework.
Could you mine it to model patterns of students
who succeeded in the past? Use that to identify current ones likely to fail?
And then help those students? Many educators are now asking similar questions.
“Mr. Lange and his colleagues had found that by
the eighth day of class they could predict, with 70 percent accuracy, whether a
student would score a “C” or better. Mr. Lange built a system, rolled out in
2009, that sent professors frequently updated alerts about how well each
student was predicted to do, based on their course performance and online
behavior.”
Research shows that social ties can influence
academic success. If students are more integrated into campus life, they’re
more likely to stay in school. If a friend drops out, they’re more likely to as
well.
Do you
believe in these theories of social ties or the ability to predict a students grades
for the future?
-Parry,
Marc. "Please Be EAdvised." The New York Times. The New York
Times, 22 July 2012. Web. 03 Apr. 2013.
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Data Mining Equals Competitive Advantage
When I hear
the words Data Mining, I think of the invasion of individual privacy. But let’s say that you run a business, we’ll
use a Coffee Shop, would you use Data Mining to help your business increase in
profits as well? Your competitors like
Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts are already doing it. Data Mining, if used correctly can be a pot
of gold for your company’s success and here are a few ways that you can use the
information that you collected to your advantage. Data mining helps you forecast sales, market,
plan, and identify market segment.
When you forecast sales, you’re using past sales
to predict when your customer will buy again!
You might ask how many people, households, businesses will buy your
coffee? How many competitors are in a
mile? How many people, households,
businesses are in 5 miles as well as how many competitors are in that 5 mile?
Marketing: By examining customer purchasing patterns and
looking at the demographics and psychographics of customers to build profiles,
you can create products that will sell
themselves. With
that being said, you can now begin to send weekly emails about your company’s
promotions/discounts, or new incentive awards/bonus programs. (Example, for every $3 purchase you make, you’ll
receive 1 point to your card. 10pts=1
free coffee)
Planning:
Data mining will help
you identify which products are selling the most, how much inventory you will
need to have, and how you should price your items as you uncover customer
sensitivity.
One of the best
uses of data mining is to segment your customers. And it’s pretty simple. From
your data you can break down your market into meaningful segments like age,
income, occupation or gender.
Segmentation can also help
you understand your competition. This insight alone will help you identify that
the usual suspects are not the only ones targeting the same customer money as
you are.
In conclusion, if I were a business, I would use Data Mining
to my advantage as well. Powerhouse
companies like Wal-Mart, Amazon, Microsoft, Starbucks and much more survive not
by sitting on these data but to put them to use. As I continue to understand the usage of data
mining this semester, this is a technique that companies use to get ahead of
their competitors. Companies may know my
purchasing history, street address, phone number, email, and credit card
information but so far, my account balance still remain the same and my credit
is still good, so it’s safe to say that companies who invaded my privacy are
keeping me safe from thieves.
Thursday, March 28, 2013
The infamous #HASHTAG
When one initially thinks about the Hashtag, which is simply a # sign that allows topics to start trending so that others can see what people around the world are saying about that specific topic, they automatically assume Twitter. There is rumor that this epidemic is going to be making its way over to Facebook. This switch can be HUGE for companies that simply create a hashtag for consumers to tweet about which allows them to get immediate feedback from those who their companies directly serve.
Although many people wouldn't think about companies turning random suggestions from consumers through hashtags into profit, it is becoming more and more prevalent. Companies will simply create a unique hashtag that uses keywords for them to be able to search this topic. Analysts will "mine" through this data and use the information that is provided by the consumers to suggest many things such as new products, other business strategies and approaches to take on economic and governmental changes.
Since Facebook allows companies to have free business pages for people to "like" the hashtag will allow these companies to be able to get more directly connected with their customers. Twitter currently allows businesses to have a Twitter account but not as much information about that company can be displayed as compared to those pages on Facebook. Facebook allows companies to promote their products with pictures, advertisements, etc. Someone would more than likely look up a company on Facebook before they would on Twitter because there is more information readily available.
Adding the hashtag feature to Facebook will open up another line of communication between companies and consumers. The hashtag that is used for trending topics will create a lot of data that can be made useful by companies to generate more revenue. The analysts mentioned before may already be at the company or newly created positions within companies to help manage this data and find the trends in what consumers want.
The purpose of this post was to be informative on how something we don't think much about such as adding a hashtag to the end of our tweet or now possibly our Facebook posts puts us in "database" if you will for companies to track us. When companies search the hashtag that their company created to get the feedback they can possibly track your tweets to get more information or simply pull your name and other personal information that is available on Twitter.
Sources:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/03/14/facebook_hashtags_annoying_twitter_feature_is_data_mining_advertising_gold.html
http://www.inc.com/tech-blog/twitter-hashtag-techniques-for-businesses.html
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Not-So-Obvious Data Mining Motives
You have all probably heard examples of companies tracking purchases that you make and subsequently suggesting similar items for you in ads on your screen. You are also most likely familiar with companies mining public information you enter into websites such as birth dates and email addresses. You may, however, be surprised at the variety of data types that people seek. You may also be surprised when you learn of some unique ways companies use this data.
A recent article by Forbes titled ‘Data Mining CEO Says He Pays For Burgers With Cash To Avoid Junk Food Purchases Being Tracked’ mentions a few examples of mined data that isn't so often considered by the public.
For example, the article discusses how insurance companies use “aggregate data about individuals from records of things like prescription-drug and other retail sales, product warranties, consumer surveys, magazine subscriptions and, in some cases, credit-card spending” to determine insurance rates and premiums. In some cases, if a person appears healthy from the examination of this data, they may be allowed to skip in-person medical tests. For example, a person who is subscribed to a fitness magazine may receive a lower insurance rate than someone who is not. Due to this reality, Kevin Pledge (CEO), has decided to forgo using his membership card at the grocery store when he makes less-than-healthy food purchases.
The point here is that whether or not you are aware of the types of data being mined, you may not always understand why, or what it is being used for. This is only one example of a less obvious motive behind data mining. You would be surprised at just how much can be found out about a person from seemingly harmless information. With the increasing prevalence of this type of data mining, it can be hard to avoid. I do, however, think it is worth a second look when giving out any information. Ask yourself ‘what else could this information be used for?’
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/06/15/data-mining-ceo-says-he-pays-for-burgers-in-cash-to-avoid-junk-food-purchases-being-tracked/
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Who's Trackin' You?
See Who is Tracking You!!
There are a few programs out there
that will allow you to see who is tracking you and set your privacy settings
accordingly:
·
Privacychoice.org- allows you to set/adjust your
privacy settings on all social networking sites and more
·
Collusion- allows you to visually see third
parties tracking you
·
Ghostery.com- allows you to see who is grabbing
data from you when you visit different sites
I decided to download Ghostery
(IT’S FREE) because I am interested in what kinds of sites are “grabbing” my
information. Right now, I am on Facebook, school e-mail, Google, and Bass Pro
Shop’s website. With Ghostery, there is a little ghost icon at the end of your
URL bar. When trackers start grabbing information it will alert you by
displaying a number on the ghost.
While on Facebook, I have a 3 displayed, none on my school email, none on
Google, but I have an outstanding 28 on Bass Pro Shop’s site. I wanted to know
more. I clicked on the number 28 and it tells me all the sites getting
information. I clicked on a random one; Ghostery provides me with the name and
how it operates. This particular one that I clicked on was Adobe Digital
Marketing and operates by Omniture! It even gives a synopses of what they do
and why. This is a cool tool, and just gives you an idea of what is going on.
Sources:
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