Two companies already fielding Watson-based apps are Ampsy, which provides a platform for analyzing brand presence in social media, and SparkCognition, a company providing security analytics.
Ampsy does a lot of work with the music and entertainment industries. “We got to a point where we realized all the amazing content …had a lot of data behind it,” said Jeremy Gocke, founder and CEO, in an interview.
Watson was a natural match for Ampsy’s analytical platform, according to Gocke. The goal is to spot and log anyone at a live event who is sharing or generating social content.
Consider an AC/DC concert, for instance, Gocke said. Each concert venue is geo-fenced using a GPS location. The system grabs social content — even without a hashtag — from users within a prescribed radius. All social media postings are shared on a tour website. Data gathered from postings rate how much fans like each segment of the concert. Using Watson-driven analytics, individual “superfans” can be identified, thanked, and given free backstage passes for post-concert meet-ups with the band.
Watson could take it to the next level with visual recognition of brands at big events by using the Watson visual API. In that case, Watson would “recognize” a brand name or logo by comparing it to a database of logos, something that Watson can learn.
“Brands are evolving beyond brands,” Gocke said. “Brands are becoming experiences.” To that end, a brand name product can be melded into an event, and anyone attending the event can show an affinity with the brand, or the brand can show an affinity for the crowd.
There is no way Ampsy would be able to deliver this type of experience using its analytical platform alone, nor is it possible for humans to deliver the same assessment. Gocke said that only Watson’s AI, scaled to meet the challenge of sorting through an incoming torrent of data, can deliver the solution.
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