Wednesday, 26 February 2014

Essay Assistance - Help With Essay Writing

Help with essay writing? Surely this must be frowned upon by the authorities. Academic writing should be the result of an individual's work, and a student should not ask for another writer to 'fix my essay'. That is certainly true of course, but there is a degree to which essay assistance is allowed, governed by a code of conduct set out by the universities.

There should be no plagiarism, of course, nor any 'ghosting', but online academic writing services exist for the important task of editing for 'clarity, flow and consistency.' The student can submit their essay for assessment in the vital areas of grammar, spelling and punctuation - and turnaround could be within 12 hours if necessary.

It can be very difficult to spot mistakes within one's own writing, academic or otherwise. This is one of the strengths of a professional proof-reading and editing service, which can correct grammar and spelling, sentence structure, and punctuation. This type of online service is always on hand, available 24-hours a day, all year round.

With essay assistance it is possible to submit your work for assessment, yet retain complete control of the finished assignment. The track changes function in Microsoft Word can be used to highlight any changes which have been made. These changes are suggestions only, which can be approved or amended when the document has been returned.

A lengthy essay such as a dissertation can certainly benefit from presentational essay assistance. Maintaining consistency throughout a dissertation is one of the challenges which can be difficult to optimise, and is easy to overlook. Such essay assistance may include the creation of pre-linked contents pages, management of heading and text formatting, inserting page breaks and cover pages, adding headers and footers, and creating dynamic referencing.

Grammatical style is another key element in the clear presentation of your work. Clarity of thought and the coherence of a well-plotted argument can be disguised by extended sub-clauses and the over-use of parentheses. If your reader is distracted from your main purpose then your most powerful points could be lost. This is an important aspect of essay assistance, and having your attention drawn to flaws in your grammatical style are far easier for a third party to identify. After all, you may know what you mean, but your reader must also be able to follow your line of thought.

There is no need to allow this to happen. If marks are lost due to failures in presentation or grammar, then a student will not only have undersold their true worth, but also wasted some of their energies. This is the significance of essay assistance, and with the ease of online access throughout the year it is a potential asset which should not be overlooked.

Source:http://ezinearticles.com/?Essay-Assistance---Help-With-Essay-Writing&id=6349475

Tuesday, 25 February 2014

Internet Data Mining - How Does it Help Businesses?

Internet has become an indispensable medium for people to conduct different types of businesses and transactions too. This has given rise to the employment of different internet data mining tools and strategies so that they could better their main purpose of existence on the internet platform and also increase their customer base manifold.

Internet data-mining encompasses various processes of collecting and summarizing different data from various websites or webpage contents or make use of different login procedures so that they could identify various patterns. With the help of internet data-mining it becomes extremely easy to spot a potential competitor, pep up the customer support service on the website and make it more customers oriented.

There are different types of internet data_mining techniques which include content, usage and structure mining. Content mining focuses more on the subject matter that is present on a website which includes the video, audio, images and text. Usage mining focuses on a process where the servers report the aspects accessed by users through the server access logs. This data helps in creating an effective and an efficient website structure. Structure mining focuses on the nature of connection of the websites. This is effective in finding out the similarities between various websites.

Also known as web data_mining, with the aid of the tools and the techniques, one can predict the potential growth in a selective market regarding a specific product. Data gathering has never been so easy and one could make use of a variety of tools to gather data and that too in simpler methods. With the help of the data mining tools, screen scraping, web harvesting and web crawling have become very easy and requisite data can be put readily into a usable style and format. Gathering data from anywhere in the web has become as simple as saying 1-2-3. Internet data-mining tools therefore are effective predictors of the future trends that the business might take.

Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Internet-Data-Mining---How-Does-it-Help-Businesses?&id=3860679

Monday, 24 February 2014

Data Mining As a Process

The data mining process is also known as knowledge discovery. It can be defined as the process of analyzing data from different perspectives and then summarizing the data into useful information in order to improve the revenue and cut the costs. The process enables categorization of data and the summary of the relationships is identified. When viewed in technical terms, the process can be defined as finding correlations or patterns in large relational databases. In this article, we look at how data mining works its innovations, the needed technological infrastructures and the tools such as phone validation.

Data mining is a relatively new term used in the data collection field. The process is very old but has evolved over the time. Companies have been able to use computers to shift over the large amounts of data for many years. The process has been used widely by the marketing firms in conducting market research. Through analysis, it is possible to define the regularity of customers shopping. How the items are bought. It is also possible to collect information needed for the establishment of revenue increase platform. Nowadays, what aides the process is the affordable and easy disk storage, computer processing power and applications developed.

Data extraction is commonly used by the companies that are after maintaining a stronger customer focus no matter where they are engaged. Most companies are engaged in retail, marketing, finance or communication. Through this process, it is possible to determine the different relationships between the varying factors. The varying factors include staffing, product positioning, pricing, social demographics, and market competition.

A data-mining program can be used. It is important note that the data mining applications vary in types. Some of the types include machine learning, statistical, and neural networks. The program is interested in any of the following four types of relationships: clusters (in this case the data is grouped in relation to the consumer preferences or logical relationships), classes (in this the data is stored and finds its use in the location of data in the per-determined groups), sequential patterns (in this case the data is used to estimate the behavioral patterns and patterns), and associations (data is used to identify associations).

In knowledge discovery, there are different levels of data analysis and they include genetic algorithms, artificial neural networks, nearest neighbor method, data visualization, decision trees, and rule induction. The level of analysis used depends on the data that is visualized and the output needed.

Nowadays, data extraction programs are readily available in different sizes from PC platforms, mainframe, and client/server. In the enterprise-wide uses, size ranges from the 10 GB to more than 11 TB. It is important to note that two crucial technological drivers are needed and are query complexity and, database size. When more data is needed to be processed and maintained, then a more powerful system is needed that can handle complex and greater queries.

With the emergence of professional data mining companies, the costs associated with process such as web data extraction, web scraping, web crawling and web data mining have greatly being made affordable.

Source:http://ezinearticles.com/?Data-Mining-As-a-Process&id=7181033

Sunday, 23 February 2014

Top 20 Fundamentals of Great SEO Content Writing for 2014

S-E-O are three little letters that have caused a world of stress and confusion for many small business owners over the years. For those that don’t know, SEO stands for “search engine optimization” and refers to the process of properly directing search engine traffic to your website. Search Engine Land provides detailed guides that introduce and walk you through the SEO process. What we want to talk about now are the fundamentals of great SEO content writing for 2014, especially those fundamentals that stand out from all of the others.

The New Face of SEO

If you’ve ever been a minor spectator of SEO trends over the past year, you know that 2013 became branded as the year that changed SEO forever. Google released three major algorithm updates: Panda, Penguin and Hummingbird: see the Moz timeline. The most notable change we saw came in the form of a complete revamp of the proper way to optimize content.

Previously, keyword density was everything in SEO content writing. In fact, keyword density was so important that it was upheld over quality writing standards. Then, in 2013, the standards changed. Today, keyword density means practically nothing.

The New “Everything”

How to Blast Off Your SEO Content and Rankings for 2014 is the big question. The new “everything” of SEO is satisfying your audience’s thirst for quality content. Great content writing is no longer about stuffing in high traffic keywords and phrases. It’s about writing compelling, engaging, informative, relevant and entertaining content. It’s about standing out from the crowd as a credible and authoritative resource. It’s about creating the kind of blogs, articles, press releases and website pages that people can’t help but share with their friends and family.

So, where do you start? How do you jump on board and implement the new best practices of SEO content writing?

The Fundamentals of 2014

Let’s talk basics. You need a place to start. First of all, after a thorough review of the new SEO trends, Gianluca Fiorelli has concluded on The Moz Blog: “Sincerely, I don’t think that our daily lives as SEOs and inbound marketers will radically change in 2014 from what they are now.” So, avoid panicking with the thought that everything you previously knew is out of date. In all sincerity, the biggest change we see is the switch from keyword stuffing at all costs to writing high quality copy.

Your 2014 content needs to satisfy your audience’s thirst for quality material. How then do you start building an SEO strategy that delivers? Let’s cover the first three fundamentals:

1. Audience: Get to know your audience. In fact, challenge yourself to know your audience intimately. Before you even begin to brainstorm content ideas, you need to know your target audience inside and out. What are their needs? What do they want? What motivates and drives them? What issues are they seeking resolution to? What style of content will they want to read? Successful SEO content will use the audience as a focal point. How do you get to know your audience intimately? Stop thinking of them as just the audience; they’re people—like you and me! Use social media channels. Talk to them! Engage them. Track the content they respond to the most and encourage their feedback.

2. Keywords: Forget about keyword stuffing. Keyword insertion used to be a science. We had to insert keywords and phrases in a precise manner in order for search engine algorithms to properly crawl, capture and display our content. Today, keyword insertion is an art. Algorithms are smarter. They can mix and match word order while recognizing synonyms. As a result, well written content is the meat of our meal. Keywords are just the surrounding veggies; still important for a well-balanced meal, but not central.

3. Word counts: Focus on content, not word count. Previously, we kept our optimized copy short because we believed short, sweet and simple sold better than long, educational and informative. Well, we were wrong. People don’t want a short, simple sales pitch. They want to be educated buyers, capable and encouraged to make their own informed decisions. As a result, folks want to read meaty content. Don’t shy away from long-form content.

Just how effective are word counts to Google? detailed study indicates that copy of 2,000 words will be more fruitful than copy of 500 words. Check out the screenshot of the average word count the Google-favored blogs got:

Top 20 Fundamentals of Great SEO Content Writing for 2014 image 52f699216c5613.54540799

And guess what else—people on Twitter who shared longer blogs (over 1500 words) almost doubled the amount who shared blogs under 1500 words.

Top 20 Fundamentals of Great SEO Content Writing for 2014 image 52f69921bddd39.27450567

Quality Content is Still King

In 2014, quality content is the king of SEO best practices. But what exactly does this mean? How can you ensure you’re creating and outputting quality content? Well, let’s review the four fundamentals of quality content:

4. Relevance: If the content isn’t relevant to your business, don’t waste your time. For example, if you provide technical support services, don’t clutter your content with artsy design information. The reader will be confused. They’ve landed on your website to learn about technical support, not how to use Photoshop to create cool graphics for their website. If you confuse your audience with irrelevant information, expect to lose them as your audience.

5. Informative: Quality content will offer value in the form of information. People don’t want to be told you have the best product since sliced bread. They want to be educated about your product and how it places in the industry so they can decide if it’s the best product since sliced bread. They want to know how it relates to the problems they face or how it will solve their looming issue.

6. Compelling: Engaging and compelling writing is a must. Quality content will capture the reader’s attention and grip them until the very end. The only way to accomplish this is by writing in a compelling and engaging manner. Make the reader feel involved. Give them something to connect to.

7. Well written: Meaning there are no spelling, grammatical or formatting errors. It is highly important to ensure your copy is as perfect as possible. Content containing spelling, grammar and formatting errors will not only quickly turn off your audience, but it will also decrease your SERPs.

In essence, quality SEO content is applying lessons learned from the well-established and time tested publishing industry. How exactly does optimizing your copy with these four fundamentals relate to SEO? It gets people interested in and excited about your content. They’ll be ten times as likely to share it via social media, which brings us to the next SEO best practice:

Social Media Increases Rankings

Social media is huge for SEO in 2014. Why? Google will actually be referencing your social media presence as they calculate your overall optimization and rank your content.

Looking for proof? Here’s an infographic case study by Social Media Bistro:

Top 20 Fundamentals of Great SEO Content Writing for 2014 image 52f69922b3c3c7.60146429

Creating a few profiles isn’t enough. Your social media channels need to be active. The more active and relevant your social media posts are, the more they will contribute to your SERPs. Let’s cover the four fundamentals of SEO social media practices:

8. Engagement: Get into a conversation. You wouldn’t throw a party just to sit in the corner and avoid talking to your guests, would you? Social media is the same. Once you get your presence going, it’s time to mingle with your followers and get into intelligent conversations that hold relevance to your brand. Use your social media channels to start conversations, ask questions, respond to comments and stay involved in the discussion.

9. Lead generation content: Don’t be self-centered! You need to use your social media for more than self-promotion. Step into lead generation content by seasoning your posts with content about offers, downloadable content and webinars—whether they’re by your company or not.

10. Frequency: You should post frequently for best results. Do you use toothpaste whenever you feel like it? No, you use it frequently to generate the best overall results. Social media is very similar. The more frequently you post, the more active your channels grow and the more shares you generate.

11. Display value: Instead of looking like a spammer. It’s all too easy to blast notifications out through your social channels, but if they lack value your audience will soon unfollow you. Share information that informs, engages, educates and always perks interest.

SEO Link Building

Link building tactics are in, but they come with a warning: don’t be spammy or irrelevant! Building links for the sake of back-linking will quickly put you on the “Google Offenders” list. Before you insert a link into your content, be sure it meets SEO best practices:

12. Build a resource: Blogging is an excellent link building tactic. Google’s engineers even recommend it! You can use a blog to steadily publish relevant, educational material that is informative and entertaining. Then, build links to your posts by sharing your posts over social media.

13. Newsworthiness: The best way to encourage linking from outside sources. You can be and stay newsworthy by offering promotions, free giveaways, new product or service releases and starting conversations about current issues via social media. The juicier (or more exciting) the topic, the more newsworthiness you’ll gain.

14. Inspirational: People love inspiring stories. Who doesn’t inwardly squeal when the movie screen says, “Based on a true story?” It makes us all warm and tingly while inspiring us to do something epic. By creating inspirational content, you’ll create “natural linkbait,” or an open invitation for people to get excited and share your content.

15. Encourage links: Partnership badges can be a solid way to encourage links. People like to showcase who they support. You probably have something showing off your commitment to your favorite sports team. By giving your customers or followers a partnership badge, you’ll encourage them to show off their love of your product or service and link back to you.

Using Available SEO Tools

In 2014, we have some insanely powerful SEO tools right at our fingertips. The awesome part is that they’re free! You can round out your great content writing for SEO in 2014 with these must-use tools:

16. Google Authorship: If you don’t have it, get it. Google is literally handing you a free, easy to use ability to link via Google Authorship. When properly set up, Authorship will create an automatic author biography page link to each piece of copy you post that contains your byline. These links will display on your Google+ account and a visual graphic (your profile picture) will display beside your content on a Google search engine results page.

17. MozBar: a toolbar designed to make SEO easier. The MozBar can make choosing quality links for content as easy as 1, 2, 3. It offers an easily readable interface that includes everything from basic to in-depth SEO information about a given website or page. It’s a free tool worth downloading and learning to use, especially as you begin to choose and implement link building tactics.

18. Wordstream: A great tool for keyword research. While keywords aren’t making or breaking SEO today, they will still be needed to ensure you appear when someone searches for a type of product or service you provide.

Great Content Writing for SEO…

…involves a little bit more than adhering to the 18 fundamentals we’ve covered. While these form the skeleton of SEO for 2014, there are two more all-encompassing fundamentals to keeps in mind:

19. Originality: In order for your content to have a prayer of receiving a search engine rank, it must be original. You’d be smart to enlist the assistance of software, such as Copyscape, to ensure your content is always original and free of so much as a hint of plagiarism.

20. Professional Assistance: It isn’t a bad thing! A professional copywriter just might be your best friend in 2014 as you embark on the creation of quality content that promotes and incorporates SEO best practices.

One thing is certain: while search engine optimization hasn’t dramatically changed, the subtle changes in place for 2014 can wreak havoc with your SERPs if you don’t adhere to them and update your content. We’re likely to see even more changes as the year progresses and search engine algorithms continue to grow smarter.

Source: http://www.business2community.com/seo/top-20-fundamentals-great-seo-content-writing-2014-0777898#!wIjAY

Thursday, 20 February 2014

8 Popular Types of Internet Marketing

The internet has changed the way we do business. In fact, many would agree it's one of the most useful inventions in history. Because of the web and email we can now make our services and products available globally, and we can keep in constant contact with our customers. Internet marketing is an important part of your success online. Here are 8 popular types of internet marketing.

1. PPC - Pay Per Click programs allow you to create an ad that is linked to a keyword(s). You can create as many ads as you want. Google and Yahoo both have pay per click programs. If you aren't familiar with PPC programs, you choose what you are willing to pay per click. The more you pay per click the higher in the search engines your ad will appears. The rate per click can be anywhere from pennies per click to hundreds of dollars per click.

2. SEO - Search engine optimization is a good way to increase the amount of traffic your site gets. In fact, it's a fundamental internet marketing technique. When you SEO your site you will remove all the things that stand in the way of traffic reaching your site. This includes excessive code that the search engines don't like. It also includes having plenty of relevant keywords and then optimize your site pages around those keywords. Each page can be optimized to different keywords.

3. Banner Ads - These ads contain graphics that are colorful, animated, and catchy that will appear across the top or bottom of the web page. There are also vertical ads called sky scrapers which appear either on the right or left side of the page. Whichever type of ad appears on the page these ads will link to another website. In this case the other website is yours. Avoid animated ads. Statistically they are not as effective as ads that are just catchy without motion.

4. Google AdSense - With this program you'll have ads of other websites appear on your site. Each time one of these ads is clicked you'll make money. How much varies depending on the keyword associated with the ad. You can block out your competitors so they don't appear on your site. The flip to this is when you purchase ads which will appear on other websites creating a link back to your site and improving your search engine ranking. These ads are not annoying like some styles like popups. In fact, they can be very effective at generating targeted traffic.

5. Online Magazines - You buy ad space for a fee much like you would for a print magazine. The fee depends on how much traffic the magazine generates. You can do an excellent job of targeting your ads to your desired market.

6. Online Newsletters - Here's a way that lets you develop a relationship between you and your customers. It lets you keep them up to date about changes, new products and services, and it's also a method of providing helpful tips. You can start with your core customer base and include a request for these customers to forward the newsletter to their friends. There should be an opt in and opt out option at the bottom of the newsletter. You can also have an opt in on your website. You'll be amazed at how fast your newsletter grows.

7. Website Lead Generation - These services provide you with qualified leads and you pay a price per lead that's established in the beginning. These companies find potential leads a variety of ways including cold calls. Lead generation services guarantee a return on investment and leaves your staff free to do other tasks.

8. Online Directories - There are all kinds of online directories and city guides, as well as the online yellow pages. You can feature yourself under the appropriate category or area. So for example, if you service the LA area then you could have yourself listed in Los Angeles or if you sell women's fashion then you could be under the fashion category. With most directories a general listing is free and then you can purchase additional advertisements if you like.

This is just 8 popular types of internet marketing. There are plenty of others you can use. In fact, most times the more the better. However, one thing you need to remember is that you don't get the opportunity for personal interaction with the potential customer and so you must make sure you do a good job of portraying your message online.

Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?8-Popular-Types-of-Internet-Marketing&id=1419260

Sunday, 17 November 2013

Data scraping tool for non-coding journalists launches

A tool which helps non-coding journalists scrape data from websites has launched in public beta today.

Import.io lets you extract data from any website into a spreadsheet simply by mousing over a few rows of information.

Until now import.io, which we reported on back in April, has been available in private developer preview and has been Windows only. It is now also available for Mac and is open to all.

Although import.io plans to charge for some services at a later date, there will always be a free option.

The London-based start-up is trying to solve the problem of the fact that there is "lots of data on the web, but it's difficult to get at", Andrew Fogg, founder of import.io, said in a webinar last week.

Those with the know-how can write a scraper or use an API to get at data, Fogg said. "But imagine if you could turn any website into a spreadsheet or API."

Uses for journalists

Journalists can find stories in data. For example, if I wanted to do a story on the type of journalism jobs being advertised and the salaries offered, I could research this by looking at various websites which advertise journalism jobs.

If I were to gather the data from four different jobs boards and enter the information manually into a spreadsheet it would take would take hours if not days; if I were to write a screen scraper for each of the sites it would require knowledge and would probably take a couple of hours. Using import.io I can create a single dataset from multiple sources in a few minutes.

I can then search and sort the dataset and find out different facts, such as how many unpaid internships are advertised, or how many editors are currently being sought.

How it works

When you download the import.io application you see a web browser. This browser allows you to enter a URL for any site you want to scrape data from.

To take the example of the jobs board, this is structured data, with the job role, description and salaries displayed.

The first step is to set up 'connectors' and to do this you need to teach the system where the data is on the page. This is done by hitting a 'record' button on the right of the browser window and mousing over a few examples, in this case advertised jobs. You then click 'train rows'.

It takes between two and five examples to teach import.io where all of the rows are, Fogg explained in the webinar.

The next step is to declare the type of data and add column names. For example there may be columns for 'job title', 'job description' and 'salary'. Data is then extracted into the table below the browser window.

Data from different websites can then be "mixed" into a single searchable database.

In the example used in the webinar, Fogg demonstrated how import.io could take data relating to rucksacks for sale on a shopping website. The tool can learn the "extraction pattern", Fogg explained, and apply that to to another product. So rather than mousing over the different rows of sleeping bags advertised, for example, import.io was automatically able to detect where the price and product details were on the page as it had learnt the structure from how the rucksacks were organised. The really smart bit is that the data from all products can then be automatically scraped and pulled into the spreadsheet. You can then search 'shoes' and find the data has already been pulled into your database.

When a site changes its code a screen scraper would become ineffective. Import.io has a "resilience to change", Fogg said. It runs tests twice a day and users get notified of any changes and can retrain a connector.

It is worth noting that a site that has been scraped will be able to detect that import.io has extracted the data as it will appear in the source site's web logs.

Case studies

A few organisations have already used import.io for data extraction. Fogg outlined three.

    British Red Cross

The British Red Cross wanted to create an iPhone app with data from the NHS Choices website. The NHS wanted the charity to use the data but the health site does not have an API.

By using import.io, data was scraped from the NHS site. The app is now in the iTunes store and users can use it to enter a postcode to find hospital information based on the data from the NHS site.

"It allowed them to build an API for a website where there wasn't one," Fogg said.

    Hewlett Packard

Fogg explained that Hewlett Packard wanted to monitor the prices of its laptops on retailers' websites.

They used import.io to scrape the data from the various sites and were able monitor the prices at which the laptops were being sold in real-time.

    Recruitment site

A US recruitment firm wanted to set up a system so that when any job vacancy appeared on a competitor's website, they could extract the details and push that into their Salesforce software. The initial solution was to write scrapers, Fogg said, but this was costly and in the end they gave up. Instead they used import.io to scrape the sites and collate the data.


Source: http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/data-scraping-tool-for-non-coding-journalists-launches/s2/a554002/

Friday, 15 November 2013

ScraperWiki lets anyone scrape Twitter data without coding

The Obama administration’s open data mandate announced on Thursday was made all the better by the unveiling of the new ScraperWiki service on Friday. If you’re not familiar with ScraperWiki, it’s a web-scraping service that has been around for a while but has primarily focused on users with some coding chops or data journalists willing to pay to have someone scrape data sets for them. Its new service, though, currently in beta, also makes it possible for anyone to scrape Twitter to create a custom data set without having to write a single line of code.

Taken alone, ScraperWiki isn’t that big of a deal, but it’s part of a huge revolution that has been called the democratization of data. More data is becoming available all the time — whether from the government, corportations or even our own lives — only it’s not of much use unless you’re able to do something with it. ScraperWiki is now one of a growing list of tools dedicated to helping everyone, not just expert data analysts or coders, analyze — and, in its case, generate — the data that matters to them.

After noticing a particularly large numbers of tweets in my stream about flight delays yesterday, I thought I’d test out ScraperWiki’s new Twitter search function by gathering a bunch of tweets directed to @United. The results — from 1,697 tweets dating back to May 3 — are pretty fun to play with, if not that surprising. (Also, I have no idea how far back the tweet search will go or how long it will take using the free account, which is limited to 30 minutes of compute time a day. I just stopped at some point so I could start digging in.)

First things first, I ran my query. Here’s what the data looks like viewed in a table in the ScraperWiki app.

Next, it’s a matter of analyzing it. ScraperWiki lets you view it in a table (like above), export it to Excel or query it using SQL, and will also summarize it for you. This being Twitter data, the natural thing to do seemed to be analyzing it for sentiment. One simple way to do this right inside the ScraperWiki table is to search for a particular term that might suggest joy or anger. I chose a certain four-letter word that begins with f.

Surprisingly, I only found eight instances. Here’s my favorite: “Your Customer Service is better than a hooker. I paid a bunch of money and you’re still…” (You probably get the idea.)

But if you read my “data for dummies” post from January, you know that we mere mortals have tools at our disposal for dealing with text data in a more refined way. IBM’s Many Eyes service won’t let me score tweets for sentiment, but I can get a pretty good idea overall by looking at how words are used. For this job, though, a simple word cloud won’t work, even after filtering out common words, @united and other obvious terms. Think of how “thanks” can be used sarcastically and you can see why.

Using the customized word tree, you can see that “thanks” sometimes means “thanks.” Other times, not so much. I know it’s easy to dwell on the negative, but consider this: “worst” had 28 hits while “best” had 15. One of those was referring to Tito’s vodka and at least three were referring to skyline views. (Click here to access it and search by whatever word you want.)

Here’s a phrase net filtering the results by phrases where the word “for” connects two words.

Anyhow, this was just a fast, simple and fairly crude example of what ScraperWiki now allows users to do, and how that resulting data can be combined with other tools to analyze and visualize it. Obviously, it’s more powerful if you can code, but new tools are supposedly on the way (remember, this is just a beta version) that should make it easier to scrape data from even more sources.

In the long term, though, services like ScraperWiki should become a lot more valuable as tools for helping us generate and analyze data rather than just believe what we’re told. Want to improve your small business, put your life in context or perhaps just write the best book report your teacher has ever seen? It’s getting easier every day.


Source: http://gigaom.com/2013/05/10/scraperwiki-lets-anyone-scrape-twitter-data-without-coding/