NetMapAnalytics Interview With John Galloway

I've been corresponding with an Australian data mining company called NetMapAnalytics, which built a fascinating software that tracks unusual linkages in large data sets.

They can sniff out fraud for insurance companies, find wasteful spending in phone and internet records, and even do competitive research in academic databases. It's very cool stuff. The CEO, John Galloway, has agreed to an interview, and his answers are below. If you are interested in this kind of thing, please contact me, as I'm looking for a large data set of records to test out the NetMap Analytics software on the blogosphere. (Make sure you read on to find out how they helped catch a serial killer with their software)

The Interview with John Galloway:

1) Can you give me a) NetMapAnalytics in 10 words or less, and b) a 30-second elevator pitch?

a) Identifies targeting opportunities not able to be found any other way, and in significant volumes of data.

b) [Our software] discovers patterns of interest in 'linked'/ 'social' data. Makes possible and simplifies the identification of 'natural' segments and sub-segments and channels of influence, and the key players/ opinion leaders. Makes this information available to enable more focused
marketing and advertising campaigns, e.g. special communications and offers.

2) How long have you been around? Where are you located? Since 1991. Sydney, Australia


3) Do you define yourself as a data mining company, or is there a better (or more market-friendly) term for what you do? Do you compete with companies that aggregate data, or are you in partnership with them?

We call what we do 'network data mining' (building and utilizing granular linkages inherent in much data) - quite different yet complementary to statistically based methods for uncovering value buried in data. We work with companies that aggregate data. They monitor and collect
data; we have the relevant analytics.

4) Can you give us an example or two or how your company has solved a problem for a client using the software (we can link to your site here with the examples)

a) Advertising/marketing case: Identified natural segments and sub-segments in the data (as distinct from pre-defined/ top-down segments) and identified who and what were the key channels of influence impacting the behavior of others. That is, targeting functions that led to improved ROI in campaign management.

b) Serial murder investigation: Identified natural segments of who or what was connected to whom in vast volumes of data (all 20 million people in Australia were suspects). Iteratively, and with further datasets, narrowed the field to 32 persons and that included the later convicted murderer.

Try here for other amazing stories of how NetMap finds patterns.

5) The explosion of information on the internet often leads to data overload. If we just track information on search terms, we get millions of results, much of it junk. How does NetMapAnalytics give companies useful information that can impact business decisions?

Cyber-communities and the rich environment of online interactivity inherently involves linked/social data, which is ideally suited to NetMap analysis. NetMap is all about "sense making" of volumes of such data. Unique and smart algorithms facilitate visualization and enable data reduction and the identification and definition of opportunities for targeting, i.e. who or what on which to focus. Providing this type of information and insights to customers is key functionality in NetMap.

Our business model is that of supplying data analytic services and technology products. Mainly this has been around very similar but quite different industry contexts to the 'social media' context of this interview. I would rather not disclose too much about those other contexts. However, the point is that we are strongly proven but in other areas - and those other areas should translate well, because at the end of the day we are dealing with data and the identification of useful and impactful targeting opportunities.

6) Are most of your clients in Australia and Asia, or do you work with North American and European clients?

Yes to both questions. Keen to broaden.

7) Do you see any growth trends for marketing and branding, or is data mining only useful for research and the media?

The changes coincident with web 2.0 and the evolution and dynamics of participative communities of common interest on the Internet, open up very significant new opportunities for online marketing and advertising, as well as for data analytics. I see these as fundamental shifts over a short slice of history.

8) What is the most exciting technology or trend that you see out there? Can you tell us something we can use at our next cocktail party to amuse and astound our friends?

Might not sound exciting but is to me: extracting entities and relationships between them linguistically from unstructured or 'free' text on the fly and, seamlessly, populating NetMap screens to quickly make sense of the textual data and identify otherwise buried and non-obvious patterns of interest.

For more information, check out the netmapanalytics site, and if you have access to large data sets of the blogosphere, please contact me at info@durbinmedia.com