UPDATED 22:36 EDT / FEBRUARY 24 2015

How Watson uses linguistics to uncover Twitter influencers | #IBMInterconnect

IMG_1870MutualMind had over 75 panels displaying real-time, IBM SoftLayer-powered analytics at the IBM InterConnect conference. “We’re very exited about what [Softlayer] offers in terms of Bare Metal plus public hybrid,” said Eric Swayne, VP of Product and Marketing at MutualMind. For MutualMind, the excitement around IBM has a lot to with real-time capabilities. “We realize that marketers want more than impressions,” Swayne explained, “they want action.”

The IBM-MutualMind Relationship

 

One of the highlights of the MutualMind panels is the “leaderboard,” a real time feed of influencers at the IBM Internconnect conference. Swayne explained that MutualMind uses Watson Personality Insights to determine not just the influential person, but the right person.

Swayne called out the Personalty Insights Tool in particular, because it investigates an influencer’s last 200 tweets, and then “uses linguistics to figure out how those tweets are indicative of [an influencer’s] personality traits.” In fact, MutualMind uses IBM for a great deal of its business.

In particular, Swayne said that MututalMind “works highly with the Watson Personality Insights team.” MutualMind’s interest in Watson stems from the computer’s ability to develop a “clout score” and to build an “influencer’s social portrait.” Furthermore, Swayne explained that MutualMind uses it to “implement personality insights on a real-time level” to determine whether an influencer is “open to change” or whether they have a “degree of altruism.”

 

“Full fire hose access” to data sources is essential

 

A laser focus on real time means that MutualMind needs to have equally fast data sources. With just a 12 second delay from tweet to published screen, Swayne said that “Twitter is the fastest source of data we have.” In fact, MutualMind has what Swayne calls “full fire hose access” to Gniff, Twitter’s data arm. Furthermore, Swayne said that MutualMind has access to “millions of data sources at once,” including “thousands of forum blogs, YouTube, Reddit, and Instragam.”

To combat spam, Swayne said that MutualMind has “keyword based tools to filter out bad language.” Additionally, “every image feed [users] see is run through [the MutualMind] analytics to filter out nudity.” ImageVision, a Texas-based image recognition company, provides this service to MutualMind in real time.

Watch the full interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s wall-to-wall coverage of IBM InterConnect.

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