From my understanding of Orca, it seems like they should have considered using a mobile-specific platform instead of a webapp. If they were to have created a iOS app, this might have been more useful since the purpose of Orca was to feed in intelligence to political operatives on the go. An Android app would have worked as well. Anything but a webapp!
It's often way too easy to come up with answers after the fact, and the analysis of just what polling program worked and didn't work may not come up with any valid answers. In a complex world with more complex algorithims for coming to the "truth" of the matter, it's unlikely anyone's going to come up with an answer that may be useful in the future, assuming the future changes, which it will.
Whether manpower won the election or data analysis is going to be hard to say. I bet on manpower.
One major lesson from the Romney campaign experience is the importance of field-testing mission-critical apps before depending on them. While a Presidential election comes but once every four years, there are plenty of local races in which this app could -- and should -- have been tested, from local school boards up to U.S. Senate.
As I read it, the Losers used economic metrics, validly, as they have successfully repredicted elections as far back as 1980.
The Winners integrated polling data which was much criticized because it was using unheard values like +D10.
The explanations for failures and successes both seem to point to Obama's "ground game" -- meaning, he got out the vote, and then some, in his stronghold districts.
Not sure if technology or manpower played the critical role there, but it would be worth investigating.
Big spends on traditional TV advertising, but cutting corners on analytics and social media. That's my impression, anyway. It would be fascinating to know more about what the Democrats were using, but the details seem to have stayed under wraps.
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As Mitch Wagner discussed today, Yahoo is acquiring Tumblr. The big Internet debate at the moment is whether Tumblr will be good or bad for Yahoo. Regardless of their stances on the future of Yahoo itself, many claim that Yahoo will somehow ruin Tumblr.
Has China stolen a march on the West, developing an Internet architecture that is not only based on IPv6, but is also inherently secure from both internal and external attack?
Recently, the Obama administration has been of two minds where privacy rights are concerned. On one hand, you have an administration that vowed to veto CISPA and mandated open data for government websites. On the other hand, you have an increasingly out-of-control Department of Justice on a fishing expedition at AP and demanding legislation to let the FBI wiretap private, encrypted communications and levy fines if a company fails to comply.
The apartment and house sharing service, Airbnb, now requires members to verify their identities by demonstrating a presence on the web, and by either scanning a government ID or entering detailed personal details. Other enterprises should take a close look at Airbnb's verification policies.
New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
While NFC's original goal was to enhance mobile commerce applications, it is finding its way into a number of other uses, which is creating both opportunity as well as challenges for IT departments.
Enterprises would like to move to cloud computing but are hesitant because they are concerned about providers’ ability to secure company data. Here are some tips that help to ensure that if breaches occur, the business is not left holding the bag.
Edmunds separates customers into segments based on the info it collects on its site and from partners, and uses that to push out custom content, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
The automotive website uses propensity modeling to target ads and customer registration forms, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
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