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It's easy for Facebook to say, here's our actual engagement numbers because we have (nearly) perfect tracking! But from an outsider's perspective, say a journal
by huac 10y ago
It's easy for Facebook to say, here's our actual engagement numbers because we have (nearly) perfect tracking! But from an outsider's perspective, say a journalist or a hedge fund bro, it's difficult to perform any truly rigorous analysis involving these unobservable behaviors. So people come up with proxies - Google Trends, polls, or if you're truly adventurous, credit card spend information. [1]
Anyways, using products like Google Trends is worth a shot if only because there's few substitutes to imperfect information.
[1]: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-sec-capitalone-insidertrading-idUSKCN0UR2KR20160114 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-sec-capitalone-insidertrad...
- minimaxir 10y agoPrinting misleading charts and presenting as fact is often worse than printing nothing at all.
- TeMPOraL 10y agoI wonder how many people do that just to lie to people, because if people believe that Google Trends pseudostatistic, it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy?
- throwanem 10y ago> I wonder how many people do that just to lie to people Ooh, lots, I'm sure. It's a brilliant way to lie, because it makes catching you out look like a lot of hard work.
- lostlogin 10y agoIt's better than the New Zealand Herald (pretty much the national news paper) which regularly resorts to printing Reddit comments in full. Often unattributed.
- dredmorbius 10y agoAs the old Usenet maxim goes, the best way to prompt posting of a true claim is, occasionally, to post a false one. (Doesn't always work. But often does. Or it turns out that the "false" one is justified. Happened to me, once.)