Pings, 121
Plummer, Henry, 228–29n
Politics
people’s lack of interest in, 67, 70, 74–75, 78–79
See also Voters; Specific parties
Polling
about elections, 114–15
resistance to, 70
about values, 76–80, 87
Postini (company), 106
Prescriptions. See Medications
Privacy
not a concern in animal testing, 171
concerns about loss of, 127, 132, 180–81, 208
as issue in Europe, 65
people’s voluntary lifting of, 97–98, 156
personal details as violating, 2
and phones, 104, 124–25, 198–99
policies regarding shoppers’, 45
protections for, 151–53, 158–59, 180–81, 203–5
of workers, 18–19, 40
Probability, 21–22, 90, 108, 228n
Probst, Katharina, 47
Proxies, 70, 83–85, 90
Psychology, 14, 184, 188
Pulleyblank, William, 229n
Q
Quantification, 7
See also Mathematical models
Quants, 27, 163
R
Raghavan, Prabhakar, 5–6, 128, 145
Remy, Martin, 225n
Republican Party, 68, 72–75, 81, 87, 91–92, 225n
“Resourcefuls” tribe, 83, 84
Retail store data, 41–66, 70, 125, 141, 183, 192
See also Advertisers
RFID technology, 65
“Right Clicks” tribe, 81–82, 87–88, 93, 126, 207
Romantic-movie lovers, 1–3, 15–17, 57, 227n
Root, Mabel, 229n
Rosenberger, Larry, 224n
Rove, Karl, 68, 91
S
Sandia National Labs (New Mexico), 169–70
Schatz, James, 104, 123, 127–30, 146, 150
Scholes, Myron, 21
The Sea, the Sea (Murdoch), 177
Search engine optimization (SEO), 194
Second Life (virtual world), 29
Sensors
in animals, 169–75
medical, 151, 154–59, 161–68, 170, 177, 205
SEO (search engine optimization), 194
Serotonin, 189, 190
72-Hour Task Force, 91
Shakespeare, William, 184, 185, 192
Shoppers (consumers)
averaging of, 61
bloggers as, 96–106, 112
choices available to, 10–11, 193, 205
data collected about, 41, 43, 48, 49, 76–78, 80, 83, 87, 90–92, 97, 98–106, 112, 114, 124, 205
lists of, 62, 76, 91–92, 207
targeting of individual, by advertisers, 5, 42, 51–55, 57, 91, 205, 224n
See also Advertisers; Credit
Sifry, David, 115–16
Silverstein, Craig, 215–16
Simplex algorithms, 31–32
Simplex triangle, 94–95
Singapore, 5, 38
Small Blue search engine, 223n
“Smart bombs” (medical), 168
“Smart carts,” 48–50, 52, 65–66
Smith, J. Walker, 76–77, 79, 84, 85, 87–88
Smith, Jeff, 42, 43
“Social health index,” 178
Social networks, 18
analysis of, through cell phone data, 198–99
and dementia, 178
on Internet, 97, 98, 104–6
interpretation of, 35–37, 148–50, 178, 198
terrorists’ use of, 142, 146–48
tracking of business-related, 209–10
See also Dating services; Friends
Spam, 58, 106, 118, 121
See also Splogs (spam blogs)
Spitzer, Eliot, 126
Splogs (spam blogs), 117–20
Spotlight Analysis (company), 69, 77, 78, 80–84, 86, 87, 89, 92
Spying. See Surveillance
SRD (Systems Research and Development), 135
Standard & Poor’s (company), 210
“Stand Pats” tribe, 89
Statistical modeling. See Mathematical models
Statistical Quality Control, 17
Steitz, Mark, 94, 95
“Still Waters” tribe, 82–86, 207
Stochastic analysis, 21, 22
Stone, Edwin, 227–28n
Strangers to Ourselves (Wilson), 25
StrataMark (company), 78
Stress, 19, 179
Surveillance
of casinos, 136–41
companies specializing in, 124
of health monitors, 154–81
of ourselves, 4, 156, 166, 205
in public places, 4, 43, 63–64, 143–44, 151
punishment as inevitable part of, 137–38
technology for, 150–53
of workers, 18–40, 63–64, 97, 106, 150, 204
See also Cameras; Privacy
Swing voters, 69, 76, 79–95, 225n
Symbols, 6–9, 23–26
See also Mathematical models
Systems Research and Development (SRD), 135
T
Tacoda (company), 2–3, 11, 15, 19, 27, 54, 158, 187, 205, 212, 227n
Takriti, Samer, 20–23, 26–31, 33, 37–38, 40, 214
Talbott, Jim, 192
Taleb, Nassim Nicholas, 126
“Tears of Lust” (blogger), 96–98, 106–7, 109, 110, 122
Technorati (search engine), 97–98, 102, 115–16
Telephone companies, 103, 104, 124–25, 198–99
See also Cell phones; Polling
Terrorists, 35, 123–53, 202
See also 9/11 terrorist attack
Testosterone, 189
Therneau, Terry, 201
Torture, 127
Tree identification, 201–2
“Tribes,” 45, 59, 74
among bloggers, 103–4, 115–16
political, 80–90, 92–93
See also “Buckets”
Truchsess, Albrecht von, 65
24/7 Real Media (company), 2
U
Umbria Communications, 99–116, 118–22, 126, 145, 147, 158, 205, 212
Under the Net (Murdoch), 177
U.S. Airways, 120–21
U.S. Antisubmarine Warfare Operations Research Group, 30–31
U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 146
U.S. Embassy (Nairobi), 132
U.S. National Institute for Standards and Technology, 144
U.S. Navy, 11
U.S. State Department Watch List, 131–32
University of the South, 45–46
USA Today, 124
USS Cole, 132
V
Values, 75, 77, 78–80, 86, 92, 95, 115
Vectors, 119–22, 210, 211, 224n
Vietnam War, 73
Virginia, 93–94
“Virtual assembly line,” 39, 40
Voices
Parkinson’s effects on, 165, 166–67
recognition of, 128, 142, 144–45
recognition of, by elderly people, 155, 178
See also Words
Voters, 12, 58, 67–95, 202, 204–5, 207
W
WARP, 27–28
Warren, Steve, 169–70, 173
Weiner, Jeff, 116
Wilson, Timothy, 25
Words
as basis for machine learning, 59–62, 107–16, 122, 143, 144, 185, 195
as clues to personality compatibility, 189–90, 192
dementia studies’ analysis of use of, 175–79
as matrix of numerical relationships, 108
mining for, in e-mail, 37, 104, 106
mining of, in audio files, 145
mining of, in blogs, 100–116
mining of, in text messages, 198
Numerati’s use of, 206–7
sharing, via computers, 9
Workers, 17–40, 63–64, 97, 106, 150, 202, 204
World War II convoys,
30–31
Y
Yahoo, 5, 14, 116, 124, 128, 145, 188, 223n
Yankelovich (company), 76–78, 83, 85, 89
YouTube, 19, 97
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About the Author
STEPHEN BAKER was BusinessWeek’s senior technology writer for a decade, based first in Paris and later New York. He has also written for the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, and the Wall Street Journal.
Baker blogs at www.thenumerati.net
The Numerati Page 24
