Sometime this month The New York Times will be launching online Instant Op-Eds. According to Editorial Page Editor Andrew Rosenthal, “the idea is to have a group that provides opinions soon after news occurs, with a solid Web space dedicated to them.” The editorial page and news departments will collaborate on creating the feature.

Is this a good idea or a bad one? On the one hand, it gives the Times the ability to provide breaking-news opinion that it currently lacks: it’s a void I think online news outlets like the Huffington Post are filling today. Others fear that this is merely the cult of the instant, and risks losing thoughtful analysis to a world where “Essays become op-eds. Op-eds become blog posts. Blog posts become Twitter tweets.”

However these first efforts pan out, with the internet now eclipsing every news source except TV, the Times is wise to continue to innovate.

Photo credit: omar_chatriwala

Tags: news, opinosphere by admin
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Words come in and out of fashion — and election year headlines provide exceptionally rich fodder. Some words and phrases will work their way into everyday speech while others are slated for the dustbin of history.

When new words emerge suddenly to express an opinion we’re tracking with our technology, we’re able to keep up. How?

Our technology “reads” language with an approach based on how humans are likely to express themselves. For example, if you say that a politician is a jerk, stupid, an idiot, etc. and then come up with a new word to describe him (say, fluborizer) that means the same thing , you’ll surely use that word as well as lots of other words already known to the algorithm. Human expression of opinion is often inefficient and repetitive — that’s what makes it recognizable and authentic. Humans’ predictable language patterns enable our technology to keep up with language shifts as they occur.

Our technology — which amplifies human intelligence and can understand new words — can be contrasted to tools which merely count words chosen ex ante. If you set a fixed lexicon and choose the wrong words, you can end up missing the opinion you’re targeting.

Tags: brand monitoring, customer voice by admin
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