As we get into the discussion on business intelligence, specifically on how data is captured and used to provide relevant and useful information for a user, let's look at a more practical application, related to a device that most of you likely use quite frequently.....your iPod.
Apple has released a new feature as part of their latest release of iTunes, somewhat aptly called "Genius". I've posted a review on Blackboard that gets into some of the specifics of how the feature works. From a 10,000 foot view, essentially it collects information about the songs that you have on your device, compiles the information, sends the information to Apple, which then compares the playlists that you have associated songs with, to playlists other users have associated songs with. For example, I have a playlist on my iPod that has tracks from similar artists. One classic song from U2, one new song from Coldplay, one from My Morning Jacket, etc. When I select "When the Streets Have No Name" and click on Genius, it recommends songs both on my current iPod and songs that I don't have on my iPod that other users commonly associate with that song. It is using the information that I keep, is running comparisons to information that other users keep, and making recommendations based off that information.
In class, we'll get into more detail about this, and other reasons why this is a practical example of business intelligence.
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