Probably one of the more popular meetups in the Toronto area is the Toronto Data Science Group which regularly boasts a few hundred members at its meetings. I usually don’t sign up quickly enough and have missed out because they are at capacity. Last week, they hosted a meetup at MaRS Discovery District and I managed to get a spot, which was doubly good because it was at my place of work and I could pop down to the auditorium without trekking outside in the cold.
I’m really glad I managed to make it, because the meetup (hosted by Christopher Berry) consisted of a presentation by Richard Loa of CBC who was showing us a couple of different tools that CBC has adopted. One is to augment their web analytics with Neo4j, a popular graph database and also to present read-js a JavaScript library they have developed to better capture onFocus events than their other web analytics tools currently do.
Most of this was right up my alley, as in a former life I got into web analytics somewhat, and in particular how broadcasters measure their audience capture. The Canada Media Fund (“CMF”) where I used to work as an analyst was trying their best at the time to figure out how to incorporate “new” media audience in with their reward system. This system, the “Broadcaster Envelope Program” was a major part of the algorithm of how funding was allocated. The CMF had to figure out not only web, but how all media properties were measured was a challenge. I became highly aware of the problems broadcasters face as their business model rapidly changes away from traditional television. While I’ve moved on, I’ve kept up a tangential interest in the media sector.
The second chord this struck with me was the adoption of Neo4j: I’ve played around with the free version and it is pretty powerful. CBC’s reason for adopting it was that it allows for the ability to traverse a graph and get in deep with understanding the relationships between their customers and their preferences. After the presentation, I felt like they were doing it the right way, by letting their business needs and questions drive them to adopting a graph structure, and not jumping on just because it is a cool tool.
An added bonus was the inclusion of one guy who actually taught a Neo4j workshop I attended. Whether by accident or design, it was good to see him there, as he weighed in on some of the harder Neo4j questions from audience members.
Finally, another piece of news is that CBC has developed a JavaScript library that lets it do a more robust job of tracking online readership. They have also done this the right way by putting it on GitHub and inviting contributors to improve the code. I would encourage anyone with the skills and the interest to dive in.
Want to see more? Here is the link to the slides or check out their next meetup.
