The Dilemma of More Data
Today’s blog post was inspired by a recent conversation between some Moreover employees. My hope is that this post will give you some insight into who we are as a company and why we do what we do.
Numbers Do Lie (or Can Mislead)
Moreover is strong in the Media Monitoring field — our online news coverage is second to none. But why do some other media monitoring brands tout vast numbers of social media sites, compared to our more humble-sounding index?
The answer lies in what information our customers are trying to glean from their research. There is a considerable amount of noise that becomes a distraction (information overload). Effective monitoring of impactful sources is the driving force behind our efforts to grow and maintain pertinent coverage of social media.
Quantity of Data vs. Quality of Understanding
Just like any media monitoring company, we have competing goals. We want more coverage and more data, while keeping the tools that our clients use lightning fast and giving them only the data that helps them solve their needs.
That “only” is important.
Beware the Big
Moreover owns the ping server Weblogs.com. We have access to data of millions and millions of blogs posting content daily. We know where to look if we’d ever want to inflate our numbers, but we won’t.
Instead, we choose a “White List” approach, in which sources are vetted before they make it into our clients’ search results. When our Newsdesk clients run their searches, the data they want is more likely to be at their fingertips, rather than scattered amongst poor quality data.
More data is better only so long as it can be seen and used. Adding more content to sift through can make finding usable content more difficult. Having too much data can be worse than too little when it hinders the discovery of relevant content.
Drawbacks and Trade-offs
Of course the White List approach has its own issues. An important blog may not be covered when it’s needed. And, it makes it harder to track all mentions of keywords across all social media.
To mitigate this, Moreover’s Client Services and Editorial teams work with our clients to add the blogs and other social media that are important to them. This customer-focused coverage expansion process ensures that we provide broad coverage across multiple industries and niches. We also look at our own data for mentions of new sites, while seeking out other high-value sources of data.
A brief note on “full coverage”: With countless blogs being created and abandoned daily, it’s unlikely that anyone has full coverage. It is more accurate to say “less incomplete coverage”.
Pride in our Numbers
Moreover is proud of our 3.5 million social media feeds and our 55,000 online News sources. The number that makes us most proud, though, is our 90%+ customer retention rate. That number clearly shows we are on the right path. And we’ll continue to grow our source list in ways that bring customers value and help them find the data they need to solve their unique problems.
If you’re a Moreover customer and there are sources that are relevant to your needs that Moreover does not monitor, let us know. Our Client Services team will be happy to work with you to get these into our coverage.
Leave a Comment November 14, 2012
