Who wins when automated and human sentiment analysis fight?

Monday, May 10th, 2010

Over the last couple of weeks, the social media space has engaged in extensive battles over whether human or automated sentiment analysis is better. It’s a difficult question to answer and may in fact begin with this question:

Photo credit: Grafixar from morguefile.com

“Why assume that automated systems are more accurate judges of human emotions than human beings?”

Human sentiment analysis has many advantages, the first one undoubtedly being that it is more valid than automated sentiment analysis. This is no surprise. This is of no contention. Human beings are better at sentiment analysis than automated systems. After all, it is humans who make automated systems work to begin with and humans who work day to day to improve the systems. End of story.

Of course, the story does not end there. Humans are fabulous at understanding the humor of their best friends but not quite as good as interpreting the humor of strangers. Humans understand spelling and grammar mistakes… usually. We understand grammatical errors… usually.  Humans never get tired or bored or inconsistent after coding millions of records for weeks on end. Wait… that’s not right.

The automated sentiment analysis systems that humans have carefully created over the last few decades were built to handle some of these human disadvantages. Forget human capabilities of 250 words per minute and start thinking automated capabilities of thousands of words per second. Forget how my interpretation differed from yours because I’m tired and you didn’t get the joke, and consider the 100% reliability of automated systems even after they’ve been working for ten days straight with no coffee. If you think about it, the accuracy of automated systems boosted with human intervention is quite impressive.

There is no perfect valid sentiment analysis system but there is a system that is right for you. Do you need high accuracy for a small amount of data? Then human systems are right for you. Do you need good accuracy for millions of records? Then automated systems are right for you.

So who would win the fight? I’d say there was never a fight to begin with.

Conversition Launches Enhanced Twitter Sentiment Product as tweetfeel/biz

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

Conversition Strategies announces the launch of www.tweetfeel.com/biz, a subscription based service site that lets companies track the sentiment and content of Twitter chatter with accuracy and specificity.

Toronto, November 4, 2009: CONVERSITION releases www.tweetfeel.com/biz, a subscription service website that allows users to monitor the feelings Twitter users express towards products, companies, and other popular topics such as celebrities and movies. This new offering builds on the success of the free consumer version, and includes an increased focus on accuracy and comprehensiveness.

Tweetfeel.com/biz incorporates traditional research methodologies to ensure that the entire process of measuring and reporting sentiment is as valid and reliable as possible. After users specify the relevant search terms and keywords, www.tweetfeel.com/biz immediately begins to gather tweets in real-time. www.tweetfeel.com/biz then uses a multitude of complex algorithms to evaluate tweets in terms of both positive and negative sentiment.

Unique features available in www.tweetfeel.com/biz include the ability to create very specific and accurate search terms by specifying terms that must be searched and terms that must not be searched. Users can also build customized stories to monitor exactly how people are talking about each search term. These stories, or themes, allow users to identify the most popular and least popular topics, thereby permitting actionable insights to occur. Charts and graphs allow users to easily monitor changes in brand sentiment over time.

Tessie Ting explains, “Sentiment analysis is a difficult process in itself, but by developing a very comprehensive set of algorithms, and relying on our knowledge of valid research practices, www.tweetfeel.com/biz demonstrates a level of validity that makes brand tracking of Twitter data highly reliable and very simple.”

“This industry is no longer just about sentiment,” says Jean Davis. “It’s about understanding why people have positive or negative feelings towards something. Understanding the story behind the emotions turns raw data into useful data.”

For a personalized demonstration of www.tweetfeel.com/biz, please contact Jean Davis.

www.tweetfeel.com/biz offers subscriptions for individual or small business users as well as enterprise pricing.

About Conversition Strategies:

Conversition Strategies is a marketing research firm that listens to consumers by applying scientific research principles to the collection and analysis of online social data. Our strength lies in combining the expertise of respected market researchers with that of social media mavens. Our services are complementary to traditional market research methodologies and help you gain a more holistic view of how people engage in conversation regarding your product, service or brand.

For more information please feel free to contact:

Jeremy Chaput | jeremy@conversition.com | 647.998.3854

Jean Davis |  jean@conversition.com | 631.838.6460

http://www.conversition.com | http://www.tweeteel.com/biz | RESEARCH EVOLVED