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Each week, Google provides a taste of the top search queries, a site called Google Zeitgeist. At the end of each year, they compile a more comprehensive report of what people have been searching for. The 2005 Zeitgeist has been out since December and provides some interesting insights into online trends over past year. [...]

A new desktop BI package called DecisionStudio Professional has launched featuring some of the top tools open source tools for analytics. Version 1.0 features an impressive array of tools, including:

MySQL Server for database and data warehouse needs. Graphical tools MySQL Workbench and Query Browser are also included.
Python with an IDE. Also additional libraries for numeric [...]

Looks like I missed this one back in December, but Revenue Science (formerly digiMine) has gained an additional USD$25 Million in VC funding. This brings total funding to $70 Million. digiMine was co-founded in 2000 by Usama Fayyad. Later the the consulting arm was spun off as the DMX Group and the company renamed to [...]

A new service has just launched in the U.S. that allows people to quickly and easily get a estimate of the value of any house in the country. Taking in moutains of data the website predicts the value based on tax record and historical data. While not a official valuation, it is a free service [...]

Here’s an interesting read. Data Mining 101: Finding Subversives with Amazon Wishlists takes a look at just how much information we can extract from publicly available data such as Amazon.com’s Wish List service. The wish list allows a user to bookmark items they would like either by coming back and purchase at a later date [...]

Dont forget to read the other KDnuggets interviews with Usama Fayyad:

Part 2: his Data Mining work at Yahoo!

Part 3: his interests, hobbies and outlook for the future, including this gem: “Any smart young (and good) data miners out there: I think I can keep you very busy indeed!”

Recently I have been playing with C#/.NET programming. I’m quite impressed with the C# language, it is definitely an improvement on C++ and Java. One of my favourite features is get/set properties. As a FIT student at Monash you are entitled to use the Microsoft Visual Studio development tools. However if this does not [...]

In the latest issue of KDnuggets News Gregory Piatetsky-Shapiro talks to Usama Fayyad in an interview series covering his time at Yahoo, data mining challenges, data mining start-up DigiMine, the resulting spin-off consulting company DMX Group and consulting lessons. I have to say, what a great interview. Fayyad points to lessons on data stratergy, consulting [...]

Its been a while since my I last wrote that I was thinking of building a learner to predict AFL game results. Obviously with the finals starting this week I’m a bit late in the season but oh well! I can still simulate the season using the data I’ve collected. I’ve developed a number of [...]

After a discussion with Paul Bracewell of Offlode on modelling footy (in his case, rugby), I’ve decided to have a crack at AFL myself. I’ve started writing scripts to collect the relevant data off the Internet using Perl magic. I’m not sure, but I think I might also include other peoples tips. Monash University already [...]