Data and Culture- How the Culture Industries are Leading us to a Man and Machine Future

DATA AND CULTURE
AMA – ANALYTICS WITH PURPOSE
SAN DIEGO, MARCH 4TH, 2014

Thursday, March 6, 14

BSSP CREATES CULTURAL ICONS AND KEEPS THEM COOL

Priceline’s Negotiator

MINI

2


SOMETIMES WE MAKE DATA THE HERO: MINI’S CARFUN FOOTPRINT

Fused enviromental data with car statisfaction to generate a CARFUN score
3


DATA AND CULTURE
Focus on cultural industries—music, film, television, publishing/news.
Answer these questions:
1. How is big data influencing the culture we experience?
2. How is big data helping to shape the ways we experience culture?
3. Where is all this heading? What lessons can be learned? Potential roadblocks?

4


AN EVOLVING CULTURAL
ECOSYSTEM


LOOKING BACKWARDS WITH BIG DATA: THE 60S CHANGED EVERYTHING

Source: Google

6


BIG DATA SHOWS THAT IN BOOKS, THE INTERNET ISN’T YET BIGGER
THAN TV OR RADIO

Source: Google Books Ngram Viewer

7


WHERE WE’VE BEEN AND
WHAT’S CHANGED


WE USED TO BE PROGRAMMED AND CONTROLLED

9


THAT CHANGED WHEN CULTURE BECAME CODE

10


THE WALL CAME DOWN

11


CONTENT BROKE FREE-AND EVERYONE STOLE

12


SOCIAL IS CHANGING THE CULTURAL EXPERIENCE

The social conversation has a different cadence depending on show type
Source: Secondsync analysis of Facebook activity, 2013

13


TWERKING: A TV-DRIVEN SOCIAL CONVERSATION

Source: Google Trends

14


NEW CHANNELS = NEW AVENUES FOR CULTURAL TALENT

Lorde: One year from
SoundCloud upload to
two Grammys.

15


CODE EVOLVES THE CULTURAL EXPERIENCE
THE DAILY NEWSPAPER

Static
Daily
Highly edited
The news of the world

16


CODE EVOLVES THE CULTURAL EXPERIENCE
THE DAILY NEWSPAPER

FACEBOOK’S PAPER APP

Static
Daily
Highly edited
The news of the world

Dynamic
Real-time
Personalized
The news of the world and your world

17


BIG DATA AND CULTURE
CREATION


THE PERCEPTION: THE “CRAZY ONES” CREATE CULTURE

“God is really an artist,
like me. I am God”

Picasso with Bardot
19


CREATORS FEEL CREATIVITY IS COMPROMISED BY THE SYSTEM

“Hollywood is very different today compared
with 1969. It's very doubtful a film like this
would get made now, because the _______excuse me, the "gatekeepers", the people
who OK which films get made - will come up
with some marketing survey and say they
don't believe audiences will go see a film like
this.”
Spike Lee talking about his favorite film- Midnight Cowboy-in 2004

20


RED FLAG: BIG DATA TELLS CREATIVES HOW TO DO THEIR JOB
“In order to really resonate with readers, instead
of saying 'she was really really sad,' it might be
better to describe her physical state, to give a
literal description. You are speaking more like a
journalist would.”
—Yejin Choi, Stony Brook University, January 2014 (analysis of 45,000 books)

21


THE “CRAZY ONES” WON’T LISTEN TO BLACK BOXES

22


“HOW TOS” DON’T MAKE YOU A GREAT WRITER

23


TODAY’S REALITY: THERE’S MORE THAN A SOLE CREATOR

Lone Genius
Picasso

Art/Books

Teams

Writers
Directors
Artists
Producers

Editors/Selectors
Buyers/Show
Decision Makers

TV/Film/Music

Experience Creators
UI/UX

Developers

Digital

24


DATA SHOWS BUZZFEED WRITERS THIS MORNING’S ZEITGEIST

25


BUZZFEED’S STORIES GO INTO A LAB FOR 1 HOUR- WORK, OPTIMIZE OR DIE

26


NEW CREATORS/HYBRIDS ARRIVE

Lone Genius
Picasso

Art/Books

Teams

Writers
Directors
Artists
Producers

Editors/Selectors
Buyers/Show
Decision Makers

TV/Film/Music

Experience Creators
UI/UX

Developers

Digital

27


NEXT GEN CREATIVES ARE INSPIRED BY DATA

Arcade Fire – “Reflektor” Experience- Created by Aaron Koblin
Aaron's work uses real-world and community generated data to reflect on cultural trends and the changing relationship between humans and the systems they create.

28


A GRADUATE INTERN CREATED THE NYT’S MOST POPULAR STORY OF 2013

It wasn’t a story
It was a personalized
interactive dialect locator
Where does your dialect come
from?

Source: The New York Times

29


ZIMMERMAN KNOWS WHAT WILL MAKE US HAPPY, IN AWE, ANXIOUS OR
ANGRY- NOW
“Usually within a few seconds of seeing an
item, Mr. Zimmerman can sense whether it's
destined to become a viral story. His secret,
he says, is a deep connection to his
audience's evolving, irreducibly human, primal
sensibilities.”
— Wall Street Journal, December 1st, 2013

Neetzan Zimmerman – Formerly of Gawker

30


BIG DATA CAN BE A FORCE FOR GOOD FOR “GATEKEEPERS”

Lone Genius
Picasso

Art/Books

Teams

Writers
Directors
Artists
Producers

Editors/Selectors
Buyers/Show
Decision Makers

TV/Film/Music

Experience Creators
UI/UX

Developers

Digital

31


JACK SPARROW IS A $$$ GENERATING MACHINE
The “Pirates” franchise
has generated $3B in
global box office to date.

32


DISNEY WANTED HIM KILLED

“Upper-echelon Disney-ites [were] going, ‘What’s wrong with him? Is he, you know,
like some kind of weird simpleton? Is he drunk? By the way, is he gay?’”
—Johnny Depp, interviewed by Patti Smith for Vanity Fair
33


BANDS LIKE BRANDS: NEW SOCIAL METRICS FOR SUCCESS

Source: Next Big Sound

34


AN UNDISCOVERED RAPPER LURKS DEEP IN TWITTER’S DATA
“The depth and immediacy of
Twitter’s data could reveal
flickers that might otherwise
go undetected. Imagine, for
instance, a music executive
getting an early lead on a hot
new rapper by tracking the
most influential Twitter users
in the rapper’s local scene.”
—The New York Times on Twitter’s deal with
Lyor Cohen’s 300, February 2nd, 2014

35


SOCIAL DATA TOLD BILLY BRAGG HE HAD FANS IN EASTERN EUROPE
It took Billy Bragg 30 years
to go East.

36


DATA HELPS YOU FIND YOUR NEXT SHOW
“Through our algorithms, we
can determine who might be
interested in Kevin Spacey or
political drama and say to
them ‘You might want to
watch this.’
We can look at consumer data
and see what the appeal is for
the director, for the stars, and
for similar dramas.”
Jonathan Freedland-Netflix

37


BIG DATA AND HOW
CULTURE IS EXPERIENCED


QWEST SAW 2014 IN 1999- INFINITE CONTENT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZ9qcp6Lcno
39


IN THIS INFINITE WORLD, JUST YOU AND A SEARCH ENGINE = ARGH!

When we solved the problem
It was so big
Stealing went away

40


BIG DATA IS INFORMS YOUR NEXT-GEN SHERPAS

41


EXPERIENCE CREATORS MAKE SHERPAS BETTER

Lone Genius
Picasso

Art/Books

Teams

Writers
Directors
Artists
Producers

Editors/Selectors
Buyers/Show
Decision Makers

TV/Film/Music

Experience Creators
UI/UX

Developers

Digital

42


NEXT-GEN SHERPAS HAVE
TO MAKE YOU HAPPY


NEW BUSINESS MODELS DEMAND HAPPINESS

44


HAPPINESS IS A NUMBER- SUBSCRIBERS LEAVE IF THEY DON’T WATCH 15
HOURS/MONTH

45


HAPPINESS DEPENDS ON HOW WELL YOU KNOW ME

46


EMOTIONAL SENSITIVITY ISN’T A CORE COMPUTING TRAIT

Justin van Genderen

47


WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO
GET TO “HAPPY”?


REQUIREMENT NO. 1:

DEEP KNOWLEDGE
OF YOUR CONTENT


MUSIC: WHAT IT TAKES

“Once, all you needed to succeed in the
music business were a pair of golden
ears and some hustle. Now, it also takes
mountains of data.”
NYT- March-6th-2014

50


MUSIC: MAPPING THE LANDSCAPE- A SLICE OF 700 GENRES

Source: The Echo Nest

51


MUSIC: CRACKING THE GENOME

Pandora’s musicology experts analyzed over 1 million songs according to 450 attributes.

52


MUSIC: THE ABILITY TO DECONSTRUCT THE CODE


53


MOVIE/TV: NETFLIX’S HAS 76,897 GENRES FOR A REASONTO HELP FIND YOUR NEXT MOVIE

Source: Alexis Madrigal- The Atlantic

54


MOVIE/TV: DEEP KNOWLEDGE DEMANDS A HUMAN/MACHINE PARTNERSHIP

“The adjective ‘feel good’ gets attached to movies that have a certain set of
features, most importantly a happy ending. It's not a direct tag that people attach
so much as a computed movie category based on an underlying set of tags.”
—Alexis Madrigal, The Atlantic

55


HUMANS AND MACHINES WORK TOGETHER TO MAKE FACEBOOK’S PAPER
Your friends’ stories from
an algorithm, and new
stories from editors.

56


REQUIREMENT NO. 2:

BEHAVIORAL
UNDERSTANDING


YOU CAN MAKE A BETTER PLAYLIST/RADIO STATION WITH BASIC BIG DATA
INSIGHT


58


MUSIC: PANDORA’S BIG DATA LAYERS DRIVE YOUR NEXT SONG SELECTION

59


NETFLIX: LOTS OF BIG BEHAVIORAL DATA- NO LONGER ABOUT STAR RATINGS

“Netflix looks at 30 million ‘plays’ a day,
including when you pause, rewind and
fast-forward, 4 million ratings by
Netflix subscribers, 3 million searches
as well as the time of day when shows
are watched and on what devices.”
—New York Times, February 24th, 2013

Reed Hastings thoughts the star recommendation system was the key data
point. He spent two weeks of vactation on trying to prove his case. He lost to his
data team- who believed the “Play Data” was more important.
60


BEATS MUSIC WONDERS IF HUMANITY IS MISSING

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0_kzPhP4HI
61


HOW THE CULTURE INDUSTRIES ARE LEADING US TO A
MAN AND MACHINE FUTURE
SAN DIEGO, MARCH 4TH, 2014


POTENTIAL FUTURES


SCENARIO NO 1: HUMANS ARE BEST: THEY CURATE THE CONTENT

64


SCENARIO NO 2: PLAY: DATA MAKES CULTURE MORE INTERACTIVE

Paul Lemare-The Echo Nest

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJQ1K1dnU2A
65


SCENARIO NO3: MACHINES RULE: AN ALL SEEING ALL KNOWING OS

.
66


A REAL GOAL: NETFLIX WANTS TO READ YOUR MIND

“Why not just show one tremendous gorgeous image of one title
because we've read your mind and know what it's going to be?"
Todd Yellin-Netflix
67


FINAL THOUGHTS


WE CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT EACH OTHER

HUMANS
Patterns, soul, serendipity
Can’t forget to ask why

MACHINES
Power, speed

69


ZYNGA: THE POSTER CHILD FOR OVER-RELIANCE ON BIG DATA

Text

All data. zero imagination

70


DON’T FORGET TO ASK WHY? WHAT DO PEOPLE WANT?

or

Curators

Blank Canvas

71


NEXT GENERATION CREATIVES WILL CREATE NEW CULTURE AND NEW WAYS
TO EXPERIENCE IT

Lone Genius
Picasso

Art/Books

Teams

Writers
Directors
Artists
Producers

Editors/Selectors
Buyers/Show
Decision Makers

TV/Film/Music

Experience Creators
UI/UX

Developers

Digital

72


BETTER DATA: EVEN MORE CUSTOMER INSIGHT AND MORE GENOMES
Brand genomes will
transform the e-commerce
experience

Facebook will know what
you are going to buy

Pinterest will have a visual genome

Pandora will know your
mood
and situation
73


WE ARE EVOLVING THROUGH LEARNING, BUT IT’S VERY EARLY DAYS

74


INDIRECT AND DIRECT INSIGHT AND INSPIRATION FROM:
•

Ky Harlin, BuzzFeed

•

Alexis Madrigal

•

The Echo Nest

•

Next Big Sound

•

Spike Jonze

75


THANK YOU
@COTTON | BSSP
.COM | INFLUXINSIGHTS.COM


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