When people hear about the Influence Engine and learn what it can do, they often want to know how it works.

We’re really happy to explain the principles of network science that power the Influence Engine, but one of the challenges we face with media folk is getting them to ‘think network’.

Knowing a little bit about network science can really help marketers and media professionals to create better advertising campaigns, but many of the core ideas and concepts often seem quite weird to people steeped in conventional media practice.

Through a process of trial and error I’ve developed simple stories that gently ease new-comers into the network science swimming pool. After many discussions with people in media and advertising I’ve discovered that sketching out simple network drawings is the best way to de-mystify network science and engage people with this incredible new frontier of marketing information. (more…)

The UK General Election isn’t over yet.

As the leaders of the three main political parties wrestle with the challenge of forming a coalition government, the UK’s political Twitteratti have gone into overdrive.

We used the Influence Engine to analyse political activity on Twitter for the period 1200hrs Fri 7th May until 1200hrs Mon 10th May (today). Our analysis looked at an individual’s success in having their tweets picked up and distributed to other people within the network of Twitter’s politico-sphere. Here is the list of the UK’s Top 30 most influential tweeters on political subjects (click to enlarge). (more…)

RAB South Africa inks deal with UK for radio advertising effectiveness tool.

The Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB) South Africa has announced the completion of an agreement that will bring RadioGauge, the world’s only universal radio advertising effectiveness research study, to the South African market.

The RadioGAUGE will be introduced to the South African market at the inaugural RAB ‘RadioWorks Conference 2010′ in Capetown on 13th May by Mark Barber (Planning Director, RAB UK) and in Johannesburg on 18th May 2010 by Jason Brownlee (Founder, Dollywagon Media Sciences). (more…)

Dollywagon’s latest network analysis of hash tag usage on Twitter during the current General Election raises some interesting questions.

The official election polls in the mainstream media show a tight race with the Conservatives slightly ahead of Labour and The Liberal Democrats. However, on Twitter the picture appears to be significantly different. (more…)

Recent work from HP Labs at Palo Alto in California demonstrated that crowd-sourced data taken from Twitter has an uncanny ability to predict movie box office success.

Dollywagon thought this was interesting and has been monitoring Twitter to see what it could tell us about the future outcome of the UK’s finely-balanced General Election campaign.

(more…)