Friday, April 4, 2014
Sentiment Analysis - Natural Language Processing
I have always been interested in Natural Language Processing tools, but with the recent purchase of Topsy by Apple, I wanted to do some research and find out available tools. To my great surprise there are great tools out there, that makes sentiment analysis pretty easy, and the biggest of all is Python library Natural Language Tool Kit, aka NLTK. parses, tags and reconstructs texts so that machines can understand the sentiment behind each statement. Here is a great video tutorial on how to install and do a test run with NLTK:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQVvvaa0QuDfRO5bQFLcVgvIOIhNUZpZf
It is composed of 26 videos, each about 10 mins long. The presenter does a great giving you just what you need to know. Check it out!
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
Double Robotics vs Romo - Affordable Telepresence Tool
The lack of enough initiatives/start-ups in Telepresence/Virtual Presence world has always surprised me. After all, people started working remotely for a while now and they need is the tools to make this experience better. The biggest tool to me is Telepresence robots.
Unfortunately most of the attempts that I have seen so far has one fundamental problem; they are not affordable. I will not get into too much details but for instance, a robot from Double Robotics costs you $2,499 as of today. I find it unnecessarily expensive, given that the robot has only two moving parts and you will have to provide the brain of the machine with an IPad. The actual price goes up to $3,000 when the price of IPad is included.
As I have given up all hope, I found this new startup; Romotive . Apparently, this whole project started as Kickstarter project and they started manufacturing in bulk couple years ago. I will go ahead and be upfront about this; this is not designed as virtual presence robot. It is intended to be a robot pet (from out of space) that is supposed to interact with you. However, this doesn't mean that it has tele-conference capabilities. And the best part is... yes its price. It is only $149. It is one twentieth of what Double Robotics costs you. Yes, it is smaller in size, but I don't think the price difference could be explained merely by the difference in size. If these guys are able to build this product for $149, I am sure a bigger version of this tool could be built at an affordable price.
As it is the case with any other product, the more competition there is, cheaper the products get. Hopefully, we will see more competitive products being released as entrepreneurs realized the untapped potential in this market.
Unfortunately most of the attempts that I have seen so far has one fundamental problem; they are not affordable. I will not get into too much details but for instance, a robot from Double Robotics costs you $2,499 as of today. I find it unnecessarily expensive, given that the robot has only two moving parts and you will have to provide the brain of the machine with an IPad. The actual price goes up to $3,000 when the price of IPad is included.
As I have given up all hope, I found this new startup; Romotive . Apparently, this whole project started as Kickstarter project and they started manufacturing in bulk couple years ago. I will go ahead and be upfront about this; this is not designed as virtual presence robot. It is intended to be a robot pet (from out of space) that is supposed to interact with you. However, this doesn't mean that it has tele-conference capabilities. And the best part is... yes its price. It is only $149. It is one twentieth of what Double Robotics costs you. Yes, it is smaller in size, but I don't think the price difference could be explained merely by the difference in size. If these guys are able to build this product for $149, I am sure a bigger version of this tool could be built at an affordable price.
As it is the case with any other product, the more competition there is, cheaper the products get. Hopefully, we will see more competitive products being released as entrepreneurs realized the untapped potential in this market.
Friday, February 21, 2014
Facebook Enters $16 Billion Deal for WhatsApp
It is crazy to see to think Facebook will pay $16 billion for WhatsApp. Given that most of WhatsApp's ~450 million members live outside of US makes this deal a bit more questionable. It's obvious that Facebook is struggling to find a way to reach out to teenagers. And the company made multiple attempts to purchase SnapChat and failed. However replacing SnapChat with WhatsApp doesn't look a smart idea. I guess we'll wait and see how this plays out.
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Hello after a long hiatus!
I have been busy with work recently so I apologize for not updating my blog for a while now.
When I look at my latest post from 2011, it's amazing to see everything that has changed! There are all new social media channels that have become major players in the field. Instagram's $1 billion acquisition by Facebook, Yahoo buying Tumblr for $1.1 billion, Facebook's and Twitter's IPOs. The biggest mind bugling of all is the Snapchat's rejection of $3 billion offer from Facebook.
Social media is an ever-changing landscape. The major players are here to stay but certain ones will bound to go away if they don't renovate their services. If I were to group them, I would say Facebook and Twitter will be here for the long time. Instagram is looking strong for the medium-term but they will need to find ways to engage those who might be getting bored of the platform. And I believe that Snapchat and Tumblr will not be as hot as they currently are. From a business perspective, Snapchat is the most problematic for two main reasons; 1- service is east to replicate by others 2- target audience, - young kids with limited discretionary income - is irrelevant to marketers.
Here is my quick rant on what has been going on since I last blogged.
Talk to you all soon!
When I look at my latest post from 2011, it's amazing to see everything that has changed! There are all new social media channels that have become major players in the field. Instagram's $1 billion acquisition by Facebook, Yahoo buying Tumblr for $1.1 billion, Facebook's and Twitter's IPOs. The biggest mind bugling of all is the Snapchat's rejection of $3 billion offer from Facebook.
Social media is an ever-changing landscape. The major players are here to stay but certain ones will bound to go away if they don't renovate their services. If I were to group them, I would say Facebook and Twitter will be here for the long time. Instagram is looking strong for the medium-term but they will need to find ways to engage those who might be getting bored of the platform. And I believe that Snapchat and Tumblr will not be as hot as they currently are. From a business perspective, Snapchat is the most problematic for two main reasons; 1- service is east to replicate by others 2- target audience, - young kids with limited discretionary income - is irrelevant to marketers.
Here is my quick rant on what has been going on since I last blogged.
Talk to you all soon!
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