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Back in the 1960s, when a single mainframe computer filled an entire room, most of the data was stored on huge reel-to-reel tape drives. Today, most business computers use disk drives for storage, but, for the media and entertainment industry it’s back to the future.
That’s because TV networks and movie studios have so much digital video content to store (686,000 petabytes, growing to 1,780,000 petabytes in 2015, according to Coughlin Associates) and they can’t afford to stash it on expensive disk drives. So they need tape drives that are updated for modern times–enabling them to easily find just the section of video they want, when they want it.
Now, imagine a tense scene on a highway in the Nevada desert in March of 2009. David Pease, an IBM Research scientist, was driving a rented van toward Las Vegas while Michael Richmond, another researcher, typed away on his laptop computer and made frequent phone calls to Lucas Villa Real, an IBM scientist based in Brazil.
They were putting the finishing touches on a technology that’s now called Linear Tape File System (LTFS), which was designed to provide broadcasters and movie studios with the responsiveness and searchability of disk storage at the price of tape storage. They were set up to demonstrate the technology to attendees of the National Association of Broadcaster’s annual convention. The drive from IBM Research – San Jose to Vegas took 10 hours. Richmond and Real were coding and debugging all the way. “It was down to the wire, but it worked well enough that people saw the potential of it and they got very excited,” says Pease.
He and some of his IBM colleagues will be attending the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Primetime Emmy Engineering Awards ceremony today at the Renaissance Hotel in Los Angeles. At the ceremony, IBM and Fox Networks Group will receive an Emmy for media workflow transformation and pioneering the development and application of LTFS.
Here’s the famous Did You Know 4.0 video about the proliferation of digital media and communications.
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Lia P Davis in
Guest post by Jonathan Taplin, Professor at the University of Southern California and the Director of the school’s Annenberg Innovation Lab. Next week Professor Taplin will be participating in the IBM Information on Demand and Business Analytics Forum (IOD11).
Two more World Series games played and millions of tweets later, IBM and USC Annenberg Innovation Lab students uncovered new findings in fans’ social sentiment in our ongoing World Series analysis.
Despite lower TV ratings for Game 3, we saw the volume of tweets increase from Game 2 as baseball’s diehard fans continue to turn to the Twitterverse and other social media platforms to pontificate about the game play and players and coaches on the field.
Using the same metrics from our initial World Series analysis, the number of “sentiment” tweets – that is, tweets both positive and negative, in our most recent sampling showed:
– In Game 3: St. Louis Cardinals’ Albert Pujols and the Texas Rangers’ Nelson Cruz were the most tweeted among players and coaches.
– In Game 4, the Cardinals’ Albert Pujols kept his crown and the Rangers’ Derek Holland led his team for total number of tweets.
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Great game play not only can result in a W for the team, but also a W for individual social media accolades. In this most recent analysis, St. Louis Cardinals’ Albert Pujols, amassed unbelievable numbers following his historic baseball performance, receiving the most tweets on his team for both Game 3 and Game 4 and the most positive sentiment at 81% and 87% respectively. The same could be said for the Rangers’ Derek Holland in Game 4, who received the most tweets and an 83% positive sentiment. Rangers’ Michael Young netted most positive sentiment on his team for Game 3 with 83%. For those keeping score at home, the positive sentiment is the result of ‘T’ scores – the ratio of positive to negative sentiment indicated in tweets.
Our second analysis accurately correlates players’ large volumes of tweets to fans’ positive feedback, reiterating how important social media platforms are to capturing consumer sentiment and uncovering actionable insights. More importantly, it affords us an opportunity to view consistencies and inconsistencies with sentiment—what players continue to stay hot amongst fans, who is falling off the bandwagon, via real-time data to make or change decisions, be it promotions or other marketing efforts. It also goes to show those relying solely on mediums such as TV to uncover new fan insights will be at a disadvantage to their peers who are turning to social media to analyze sentiment to get a real-time temperature check on public attitudes as well as customer segments like diehard baseball fans that can result in making more insightful decisions.
Stay tuned for our final analysis at the conclusion of the World Series. Enjoy the rest of the Series!
- Read about social media analysis from Games 1 and 2.
- Read more about “Behind the Diamond: Understanding MLB Fan Sentiment.”
- Learn about how IBM and USC AIL are conducting the social media analysis project.
- Check out images from the World Series Social Sentiment Index
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Lia P Davis in
Guest post by Jonathan Taplin, Professor at the University of Southern California and the Director of the school’s Annenberg Innovation Lab. Next week Professor Taplin will be participating in the IBM Information on Demand and Business Analytics Forum (IOD11).
Twitterball – Games 1 & 2
IBM and USC Annenberg Innovation Lab students continue to analyze fan sentiment in Major League Baseball’s Fall Classic. After just two World Series games, the sheer volume of tweets is astounding — almost twice as many as the entire Championship Series. For a World Series involving two small market teams — resulting in lower TV ratings than last year’s series — social media engagement is extremely high.
In terms of number of “sentiment” tweets – that is, tweets both positive and negative, our sampling showed:
– In game 1: The St. Louis Cardinals’ Arthur Rhodes and the Texas Rangers’ Nelson Cruz were the most tweeted among players and coaches.
– In Game 2, the Cardinals’ Jaime Garcia and the Rangers’ Elvis Andrus took the leader crown for sheer numbers of tweets.
But despite receiving the highest number of tweets, these players lagged their teammates and coaches in our ‘T’ scores – the ratio of positive to negative sentiment indicated in tweets — regardless of their performance. In Game 1, Cardinals’ manager Tony La Russa – who has been lauded for his great decision making, came away with 97% positive sentiment, while in Game 2 Elvis Andrus led his squad with 98% positive sentiment. Albert Pujols obtained a 96% positive rating – indicating his role in a key 9th inning play that hurt his team didn’t necessarily hurt his “T-score” — while the Rangers’ Ian Kinsler, who sparked the Rangers’ 9th inning comeback, scored 92%.
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What are we learning from this?
First, based on our analysis, one trend seems to be that those with the most face time on TV during the game tend to be those who receive the greatest number of tweets. But that doesn’t necessarily translate to a positive sentiment score. And the fans are taking to social media platforms like Twitter to let the world know who they think are the heroes and zeros of the game.
But beyond baseball, we are learning that this kind of analysis is just the tip of the iceberg of what we can do with analytics and the massive explosion of information coming from millions of individuals in the digital world. Understanding actual fan (or consumer) sentiment – about baseball, movies, fashion trends, the latest mobile phone and more – versus what the so-called experts might predict will be a hot seller or trend, can transform the kinds of make-or-break decisions that large and small businesses are faced with all the time. And it can help companies and people make those decisions before it is too late – like what kinds of promotions to run, whether to sell a new fashion to the masses online or introduce it on Main Street.
The more people share what they actually think about a product, a person, a company online — the more their influence grows. And the more businesses ignore those opinions, the worse off they may well be. That’s why this work between IBM and AIL is so important. The shift in the balance of power from traditional to new media – and from the influence of a few experts to many millions of actual consumers — requires students to gain new skills in analytics, and help more organizations apply new technologies to understand conversations taking place via digital sources to stay competitive.
Surely, there will be some exciting new data trends to appear from the upcoming games. Maybe ‘Twitterball’ could become the next ‘Moneyball.’ We’ll share new insights next week.
In the meantime, let’s get back to the ballpark, or at least to the Twitterverse.
- Read about analysis of Games 3 and 4.
- Read more about “Behind the Diamond: Understanding MLB Fan Sentiment.”
- Learn about how IBM and USC AIL are conducting the social media analysis project.
- Check out images from the World Series Social Sentiment Index
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Posted by
Lia P Davis in
Guest post by Jonathan Taplin, Professor at The University of Southern California and the Director of the school’s Annenberg Innovation Lab.
For baseball fans, October is the month they all look forward to as the playoffs commence and champions are crowned. A culmination of great individual and team play makes this time of year “must see television.” However, with teams from smaller markets heading to the World Series, you’d believe the national fan base and viewership would dwindle. That’s if you focused entirely on traditional TV rating measurements.
With social media now a staple of professional sports, fan sentiment on this new, growing medium should not go unnoticed. Today, fans have an opportunity to both share and learn from others instantly; and they’re providing researchers with an unfiltered voice that is ripe for analysis. Continue Reading »
Just a few years ago, much of the software that IBM sold was operating systems and middleware. Vital stuff, to be sure, but not very sexy. The move to analytics has changed things. For example, we provide some really nifty software for New York’s U.S. Open Tennis Championships, which kick off today and will build to a crescendo in two weeks with the finals.
Credit: TigerPuppala
IBM’s sponsorship of the championships gives us the opportunity to showcase amazing new technologies for some of the most sophisticated tennis fans in the world. During this year’s championships, fans and broadcasters alike will be able to enjoy matches with a depth of understanding far beyond anything they have experienced at the tournament before. That’s thanks to U.S. Open PointStream, a new match analysis feature on the U.S. Open Web site.
PointStream represents a great leap forward for tennis fans. Last year, fans received a wealth of statistical information about players and matches on the site. But now, thanks to PointStream, they can access deep analysis spelling out what each player needs to do to increase their chances of winning a match, how the match is going in real time and when the momentum is shifting.
PointStream also signals a new level of technical sophistication emerging worldwide that is deepening our understanding of nearly every human endeavor. Thanks to new analytics capabilities, people are able to gather huge quantities of pertinent information about nearly any topic, extract insights, and get up-to-the second updates about what’s happening and why. At IBM, we call this the smarter planet.
When we started talking about the smarter planet nearly three years ago, it was a vision of what could be. Now, after more than 2,000 engagements with clients, it’s a firm reality.
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by Steve Canepa, general manager, IBM Global Media & Entertainment Industry
There is no doubt that Media and Entertainment companies in all segments – from publishers and broadcasters to information providers and social networks – must transform their enterprises to serve up unique experiences to empowered consumers… Consumers who are rapidly transitioning to becoming connected customers. According to IBM research:
30 % of global consumers now have a smart phone;
54 % have a game console; and
25 % have a portable game player. Continue Reading »
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Kevin Winterfield in
Entrepreneur, comedian and actress Felicia Day will be the special guest emcee at this year’s Innovate2011 conference, June 5 – 9. We caught up with her recently to ask about why she agreed to be the host (a conference first for her), as well as get her views on where technology is heading, and the impact innovations such as Watson have on her industry.
What made you decide to host Innovate2011?
Felicia: My brother worked for IBM and had been to Innovate many times. He said it was a really fun time. So, I have that connection to IBM. And I feel the tech world is something I’m very comfortable in. I enjoy working with tech companies because I’m always looking to do something no one has done before, and that kind of thinking is embraced by tech companies. IBM seemed like a really good fit for me to make my first foray into being a host.
Oh, and I’m excited to meet Watson.
Speaking of Watson, from your perspective, where else could Watson’s natural language processing be used?
Felicia: I derive great enjoyment by sharing things [through social media] that people don’t know about, but they would enjoy – especially in the area of entertainment, gaming, social media.
We’re in a world with so much inundation of information and we are able to customize our living experiences to really identify what we love in the world … but I think there’s a particular need for curation and customization with all the technology we have in order to find the information that you’re looking for.
So, having the technology that we can say “Hey, find a really good cupcake within two miles of me.” Or, “What time was my dentist appointment?” to … being able to interact with all the technologies around us in a way that is more human … that would be particularly helpful for people in this social media world, where we’re always connected, but maybe not connected to the right things.
Why should your fans, fans of The Guild, be interested in IBM?
Felicia: I learned, in my years when I was starting The Guild from the ground up, to appreciate how valuable all the back-end technology components were to us getting going quickly – things we took for granted.
So, to me, all my experiences have given me a great appreciation for the people who are experts in the field who work on the platforms and technology behind the scenes, and who without them nothing would exist.
And having my brother be at IBM for so long and knowing that his work with data systems made things run properly and help us advance as a society made me really interested in supporting that, and proud to be giving more of a face to it.
How’s The Guild going and are you working on any new projects you can tell us about?
I have a new project that should come out this summer. It’s based on the world of DragonAge, which is a video game franchise I love. They gave me an opportunity to create a narrative web series that fits in their universe. I created an elf character who is an assassin, and we follow her on her quest. It’s even more “meta” than The Guild, which is a show about people playing a game. This is a show about me playing a character who could fit in the world of a game. I’m progressively digging myself deeper and deeper into the world of video games which is not a bad thing because I love them.
Thank you Felicia for chatting with us today. Any final thoughts?
Felicia: You’re welcome. And thank you, too. I’m really looking forward to Innovate. To me, I’ve always been connected to tech, so the people I admire most are the people who innovate in the tech area.
Remember to register today for Innovate2011, the premier event for software and systems innovation. You can follow Felicia on twitter at @feliciaday.
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By Steve Canepa
If there is one constant in the 21st century media and entertainment marketplace – it is constant change. As billions of intelligent devices, hybrid networks, advanced services, apps, and digital content continue to evolve in uncountable ways, media firms focusing on the production and distribution of information, news, entertainment and social experiences are facing a daunting challenge: how to make sense of it all – while providing unique value.
This is precisely why IBM’s Watson is so important. Continue Reading »
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By Steve Canepa
Last week in New Orleans, IBM was recognized by Frost and Sullivan as the 2010 Global Digital Media Company of the year. It was deeply gratifying to receive this independent acknowledgement of our leadership role in helping the Media and Entertainment Industry transform.
IBM’s commitment to deliver innovative solutions has enabled a smarter Media Industry to emerge as our clients seize the opportunities presented by the transition from analog to digital content and from physical to network distribution. We continue to build on a proven record of breakthrough solutions, including: Continue Reading »
“Prototypes were finished and tested; By late winter the design and development was complete; And in April, everything was up and running.”
Here’s another true story from IBM’s First-of-a-Kind (FOAK) program, which pairs IBM researchers with clients to bring incredible discoveries and possibilities into view.
