SBIR Phase I:Innovative Tools to Visualize Digital Media in Digital Era

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project aims to create a media analysis tool that mines data points across social and traditional media websites and delivers meaning to the data by providing an interactive visualization of those data points, displaying frequency graphs of the data, and grafting together disparate data sets from a variety of sources to create rich and novel data tables of business information. The platform will allow the end user to watch a visual representation of how a single press release, news clip or marketing push triggers activity among journalists, bloggers, micro-bloggers, etc., as well as allow the user to interact with the underlying data. Existing media analysis platforms typically fall short of delivering an effective snapshot of how information and misinformation spreads across the Web, and how to expedite information dissemination. This research aims to identify and analyze patterns in how information spreads across digital media and to provide a new and advanced data visualization interface with which communications professionals and researchers can interact to uncover paradigms in data dissemination and new ways to influence the actual patterns of dissemination. It is believed that existing media analysis platforms are too expensive for most communication shops and are difficult to use due to their complexity. Both the high costs and steep learning curve serve as major barriers to widespread adoption of media analysis platforms that could dramatically improve communication efforts and cut marketing costs. The platform will enable greater discovery into the key influencers for a particular market, factors affecting the widespread distribution and uptake speed of information, assessments of audience size and the buzz around a campaign, and demographic and regional patterns in how information reaches an audience. For communications professionals, understanding how their messaging spreads over the Internet will significantly improve their ability to expedite communications and bring relevant information to the right people, at the right time.