Ask, Measure, Learn [antikvár]

Introduction In April 20II, United States Special Forces descended on the hideout of Osama bin Laden, leader of the terrorist group al-Qaida. The ensuing raid killed bin Laden after over a decade of living in hiding and directing attacks by his followers. So who knew where he was located? The answer may surprise you: we all did. According to Kalev Leetaru, a researcher at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, an analysis of public news articles' about bin Laden pinpointed his location within 200 kilometers in diameter. In a very real sense, one of the world's most secretive hiding places may have ultimately revealed itself from the mosaic of individual data points. Each journalist had an opinion about the location, and all opinions together formed a true answer. The catch here: no survey was conducted, and no journalist was actually asked. They revealed their views about bin Laden's whereabouts through their articles. It is the power of public and unstructured data. The outcome is depicted in Figure I-i. Figure I-i. Geocoded social media articles describe the location of Osama bin Laden. (Courtesy of Kalev Leetaru.) I. Kalev Leetaru, "Supercomputer predicts revolution," BBC Technology, September 2011, http://bbc.in/ IkmjSVE.