Analytics Team

Data scientist

Sat, 04 Sep 2010 17:39:31 +0000

A question posed recently on Quora – How do I become a data scientist? has received tons of interesting and helpful feedback including some recommended steps. Also check out coverage on the topic over at O’Reilly Radar.

Facebook patents friend based search results

Sat, 04 Sep 2010 17:33:56 +0000

The search results we see most everywhere are based on the systematic estimation of the relevance of the page. What Facebook recent patent specs out is the ability to determine and display the search results based on what a person’s friends or friends of their friends found relevant. Very interesting. Check out the Inside Facebook article for more, including what the impacts to competitive offerings like Google Me could be.

Another option for A/B testing on the web

Fri, 03 Sep 2010 17:39:49 +0000

Techcrunch discusses a new option for A/B testing for websites, Visual Website Optimizer. The tool offers multivariate testing, click maps, and the ability to route traffic to different versions of your site. It also interfaces with other tools like WordPress, and Google Analytics.

Postgres resources

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 03:35:00 +0000

Here’s a great collection of Postgres resources.

Real-time data displays

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 03:24:20 +0000

This Techcrunch articles features two real-time data displays. One is from Facebook Places and the other is from Apple’s App Store. Fun visualizations.

New charting tools from chart.io

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 03:20:30 +0000

Check out this Techcrunch article about a new charting tool for real-time database reporting, chart.io.

Popular Data.gov data sets

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 03:08:06 +0000

O’Reilley lists off which of the over 2,000 data sets on data.gov are the most popular after the site’s first year in operation.

Population by latitude and longitude

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 05:01:51 +0000

I’m not sure exactly what to do with this, but it seems kind of interesting. A Harvard grad student decided to create a visualization of the world’s population and longitude. Check out the Alltop recap.

Google Public Data Explorer

Sun, 01 Aug 2010 03:10:04 +0000

Google now offers the capability to not only access many public data sets, but to explore the data using their visualization tools. Cool stuff.

SETI’s improved computing methods

Sun, 01 Aug 2010 03:03:37 +0000

SETI (Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence) is fairly well-known for their utilization of distributed computing. For decades, they have allowed the home computer user to donate time and computing resources to analyze radio signals hoping to identify signs of extra-terrestrials. This article from O’Reilly Radar details some of the changes SETI has made.