Whoever said “You can’t manage what you don’t measure” should be getting royalties from some interesting start-ups that are bringing the power of real-time analytics and data visualization to new audiences. One specialty provider, Localytics, is a Boston-based start-up that launched a set of tools for analyzing usage patterns and user behavior on mobile devices – getting deep insights on how users of Blackberry, Android, iPad/iPhone and other systems are interacting with voice, data, applications and their own data.
Localytics found that mobile app usage in the US and Canada peaked at 9:00 pm EST during the week and maintained peak usage throughout weekend afternoons and nights. In April, they reported that BlackBerry mobile apps were more concentrated and higher during the workday than iPhone.
And BlackBerry app users perform the same on the weekend — statistically identical to workweek usage. In contrast, iPhone owners use mobile apps more frequently on the weekend, “a rate 40% higher than the same time Monday through Friday,” according to its research. Find out more at their blog by clicking here and see how your usage compares with other mobile users.
Real-time selling sites such as Woot, Steep and Cheap, Groupon, Rue La La and others are watching the time of day, pricing, referral rates and other messages to track how “viral” their offers are when a particular item goes on sale. Analytics are making those sites transparent as they offer real-time inventory counts, build charts of how many visitors or buyers are trending and even dynamic pricing that adjusts as the buyers respond. Sites like Tippr or airlines and hotels are using time as a way to give early buyers a lower price for their commitment, and letting prices rise for late-comers.
In our rookie season, this blog has delved into sports statistics and even stadium load management or other fan-based analytics. We’ve covered weather analytics, traffic and other massive datasets that yield surprising details under the scrutiny of analytics. Heck, we even tried to forecast the World Cup (and lost out to that wise-guy octopus) or unearth the secret behind the analytics of a perfect Christmas present.
What would you like to see put under the microscope?
Are there useful or obscure facts and/or figures that we could dig in to for your reading or analytical enjoyment?
David Wallace
Spotfire Blogging Team
Image Credit: Courtesy of Flickr (Rob Smith Photographer)
Brett Stupakevich said:
Thank you for your thoughtful commentary, Gary.
Beyond their appetites for real-time information, what decision makers are truly starving for are better insights from data.
Faster.
There appears to be a disconnect in the data explosion: are consumers of real-time data gleaning stronger insights in a real-time fashion? Like your company, my employer Tibco Spotfire is also invested in this new era of "Social BI". Enabling better, smarter decisions in real-time.
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Fri, 2010-07-30 12:09 — Brett StupakevichGaryCokins said:
Brett,
My initial reaction to reading about the high evening and week-end usage rates on mobile devices was "get a life". Isn't there a limit and life-balance toll to always "being on"?
But then the rational rather than emotional part of my psyche switched over to thinking about the value and utility of understanding traffic for purposes you point out, like dynamic pricing.
I am a sort of a quant guy with an operations research degree, but that was a few decades ago when business was not ready for advanced analytics. The problems were not that severe, the margin for error not so slim, less volatility, and skimpy compute power. All that has now changed.
What intrigues me now is that unstructured data (e.g., text, voice) can be analyzed similar to structured data (e.g. sales volume). And there are tons of unstructured data. My employer SAS has jumped in both feet with these tools like sentiment analysis. Its uses were unimaginable just a few years ago.
What also intrigues me is an apparent appetite for real-time information, but I question if the quest for it to be reactive somehow drowns out the benefits from being proactive and good planning.
You ask "what obscure facts could be researched?" I wonder about how distracted employees are with organizational politics within their organizations. Are employees mainly e-mailing each other about others? Could the purpose of e-mails be categorized (e.g., contacting or discussing an external customer, prospect, or partner versus internal gossip)? Could these categories then be measured? I wonder what the results would imply about how focused employees are on competing and improving organizational performance versus time spent without that intent.
Gary
Gary Cokins, SAS
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Thu, 2010-07-29 12:02 — Gary CokinsPost new comment