Data Mining: The Xbox Files

This article opens with an observation that most organizations have more data than they think they do, but the users do not know how to effectively connect the dots of that data to efficiently use it. One example includes when snipers had gone on a shooting spree and had driven off afterwards. The police were told by witnesses what the car was, and that car’s license plate had been run through their system multiple times before, yet the police failed to make that connection. If they had pieced together that information, they would have been more efficient in catching those criminals. Similarly, if all organizations make the proper connections among their data, they can prove to be much more efficient.

Government agencies would significantly benefit from such data technologies since they deal with a large amount of data, but it is retailers, such as Microsoft, that utilize them to the greatest extent. In particular, Microsoft’s Xbox uses digiMine to study web activity and to map that against marketing data in order to sell more product tailored to the customers’ tastes. Xbox’s online site manager stated himself that it is important for them to be able to segment the customers to understand their behaviors in order to give them what they want. Web logs of Xbox’s online site visitors are stored in a data warehouse hosted by digiMine, whereas customers’ personal information is stored at Microsoft. Site managers in 27 different countries can initiate a data query from a web browser. digiMine will extract the relevant data (like players of Halo who read the site’s article about Star Wars: The Clone Wars and clicked on one of Xbox’s online retail partners in search of it, thus expressing interest in it) and return that informaton to the inquirer. In this way, Xbox marketers can map the data against its internal database and create email targeted offers.

Some data-mining will offer friendly interfaces for customers who research independently. For example, iPhrase uses data-mining technology to power an online search tool so that when a customer asks a question, data files are mined and only relevant information is presented to the user. This process saves $125,000 a month by letting customers conduct advanced research into companies and investment options without calling a representative for help. In an increasingly data-driven society, data mining is extremely important for helping make sense of all the information that is available. Having all the data in front of you, but not being able to make sense of it is futile. That is why data mining, and business intelligence in general, are crucial for our world, just as we have seen in Chapter 6.

Reference:
Grimes, B. (2003). Data Mining: The Xbox Files. Retrieved April 17, 2009, from PC
Magazine.
Website: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,1118791,00.asp