Web Log 'Word Bursts' Could Identify New Crazes

Zorgatron writes "New Scientist reports that a researcher from Cornell University has come up with clever method of identifying what's cool by automatically searching weblogs. Sudden increases or "bursts" in the usage of particular words may reflect a new craze, according to Jon Kleinberg. He has demonstrated the technique by searching through state of the union addresses given since 1790." I wonder how long before this can be done real time enough to really make this useful.

Comments

Google?

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

Could this be what Google wants with Blogger?
They have the capacity to do this, I don't see why they wouldnt.

"What's cool"?

[ites]

By my definition "cool" is that which most people have not yet discovered. Example: that... ah, but I'm not going to tell you. Perhaps this method can tell you what just became cool, but it's hard to track something that is by definition under the radar. Otherwise, just track Google searches. You'll soon see what's popular.

Re:"What's cool"?

[deanc]

That's what the researchers seem to track. Not the commonality of a phrase, but the "burstiness" of a certain word or phrase... ie, the delta of the word use over time. High delta values indicate something is starting to take off, though it may not yet have become popular or mainstream. That's a decent metric of "coolness."

Re:"What's cool"?

[Fishstick]

Ever see Merchants of Cool on Frontline?

A Report on the Creators & Marketers of Popular Culture for Teenagers

Yeah, that's right. Popular Culture is manufactured -- everything the teenies think is "cool" or "hot" is identified months in advance by a highly sophisticated machine that probes the minds of kids to predict what will be the next trend so that the marketing establishment can gear up to take advantage of the short window where the "thing" is "cool" and can be sold to teens in such a way that they don't even realize what is going on.

Useful?

[Longjmp]

I wonder how long before this can be done real time enough to really make this useful.

Yes, I bet the spammers can't wait until they can use it...

Let the webloggers determine what's cool? Heh.

[rubberpaw]

Of course, since there is only a very specific socioeconomic subset of the world population weblogging, what real usefulness does this give us? Honestly, even if you did ranking based on the most popular weblogs, that wouldn't help you very much.

Furthermore, this thing isn't telling me anything I don't know. So it finds the word "Vietnam" during the Vietnam years. Hooray. I bet it finds the word Iraq today, or the phrase "Bin Ladin" last year.

Whoopdie-do. I'm impressed :P. Unless this thing actually can find out the things that people are excited about that aren't well-known, it's pretty much just another search tool limited to blogs.

Re:Let the webloggers determine what's cool? Heh.

[barnaclebarnes]

Unless this thing actually can find out the things that people are excited about that aren't well-known, it's pretty much just another search tool limited to blogs.

Thats the whole point. Weblogs are not the mainstream media so he is betting that a new craze (or refresh of an old one) will show up there beofore the mainstream sites get a hold of. Face it, once it has hit CNN it is already past its sell by date.

Take the whole potato gun thing for instance. if this was appearing on peoples weblogs 6 months ago and an underground following had started then it would pick this up. Could be a perfect time for one of the toy companies to start producing a parent friendly version (Not sure how...but hey!). By the time the craze hits CNN Toys 'R Us is stocked with a version that fires water ballons, only uses compressed air and comes in 10 different plastic colours. Then they would have the advantage before the other companies jump on the bandwagon.

Of course, since there is only a very specific socioeconomic subset of the world population weblogging, what real usefulness does this give us?

A lot! Let me see, I have a large group of people who are rich, computer owning, and probably middle /Upper Middle Class all saying they want X. Now who is your target audience again? Not low income, no disposible cash types.

/b

Re:Hopefully they don't read slashdot for this

[mshiltonj]

they'll think that goatse.cx is now considered cool.

Which begs the observation: once poeple know the rules that determine what a "word burst" is and when it's happening, then tools will be developed to artificially inflate desired word burts

Create a few hundred shill accounts across thousands of blogs, then each accounts on each blob will make a couple posts with the pre-determined phrase, and you have a manufactured word burst.

Like a few years ago, when poeple sold the ability to seed search engines so your site is in the top of the results list based on certain keywords.

Google makes that harder now, but it's always a contest between those who develop the rules (or algorithm) and those who seek to manipulate the data or the rules of the game.

A manufactured word burst I can remember from before the 2000 election was 'gravitas'. That word came out of nowhere, and was suddenly all over the media, used to describe a quality that Dubya was lacking. There was a talking points memo somewhere that was very widely distributed -- which is the analog version of what I am describing.

Look it up.