mepath labs/developers

A blog post from mepath, apologies for the intermission in posts.  We have been busy coding for the new mepath website.  Some of the ideas are taking shape, you can see what we have been up to at mepath labs/developers section.

Continuing the whisky theme we have a lifestyle linking whisky product example, here type in a word  e.g. Islay . This a famous Scottish Island for distilling whisky, we do a good job of listing the products made there, Bowmore tops the list.  What is the magic?  We did not query any whisky product database of whiskies for these results, but instead we used the ‘wisdom of the crowd’ of 120 bloggers that authored posts on Scotland.

We have use this same method for lifestyle linking amazon.com

Lifestyle linking Whisky & Food

Or should I say more accurately, lifestyle linking whisky with foods and other drinks. The question behind this is straight forward: When the online community tell their stories about whisky what other foods and drinks are also mentioned?

The Lifestyle linking Whisky and Food chart shows WINE, tops the list. With beer following on, two intuitive placings given the area of conversations is alcohol.

What about the foods? Bread comes in at no.3. Given the Scottish nature of the product (whisky), Haggis lists high. January is the month of Burns Night after all.

The scoring of the foods are based solely on frequency of appearance in whisky conversations. We can score there occurrence in context but for this introductory chart we have just charted based on frequency of mentions.

January ’08 Commentary: Scotch Whisky 100

Headlines:

Another Islay whisky tops Scotch Whisky 100, well done to Lagavulin.

Macallan keeps steady in the top 5 with Laphroaig re-joining at no.2.

Fettercairn makes a surprise top 5 placing.

Further commentary:

Whyte & Mackay brands of The Dalmore and Fettercairn make the top 5. Fettercairn could be seen as a surprise brand inclusion. Last month it was Tobermory inclusion in the top 5 that produced a few comments which we thank you for. With Tobermory it was not mentioned that many times in blogs but when it did, it scored high. Fettercairn is different, it is scoring real high on number of mentions and when it is mentioned in context, it score really well too. Be interesting to know why the online community has sparked such interest?

The volatility of movement in the top 30 is less marked than Decembers index. We still have new entries with Highland Park and Speyside Distillers. These two brands present a challenge: both the words, Highland and Speyside are used in a much wider context than a bottle of whisky, i.e. regions of Scotland or referring to the Scottish mountains etc. For the Scotch Whisky 100 we want to score these two brands words on their whisky context and this month we have included them as we apply a new scoring technique to our service.

Positive Scoring of a brand:

We score brands on the frequency they appear online and score them on the context they appear. The scoring is based upon these following words coming up in context of a whisky brand:

malt
single
skye
speyside
whiskey
whisky
blend

dram
favorite
favourite
good
great
highland
islay
like
happy
positive
scotch

These words are: words to name whisky, whisky regions and positive words to do with the whisky experience.

We are building a more sophisticated scoring model, if you have ideas on that please get in touch. Also, remember the Scotch Whisky 100 is deigned to give an industry wide, consistent view of whisky conversations. The scoring words can be personalized for each brand, we have done that and for that service we offer a paying service.

Whisky Countries

Which country is talked most about in the context of Whisky?  According to our analysis, Scotland unsurprisingly tops the list.  With our Celtic cousins, Ireland coming in second place.

You can view the full Whisky Countries Analysis BETA on our site.

lifestyle linking whisky BETA

Lifestyle linking is the vision behind mepath.com. What is lifestyle linking whisky BETA? The chart scores what lifestyles are being lived while individuals are telling their stories about whisky. Our BETA index does not contain all lifestyles, but we selected a list of social, sporting and past-times to illustrate.

Headlines:

Festival goers top the lifestyle list with music at no.3

There is lots to read on the Internet and reading completes the top three, coming in a no.2

The full Lifestyle Linking Whisky is still in BETA and is based upon 2007 online conversations.

A couple of surprises, Football and Rugby do not make the top 10. This could be that football conversations take place in specialist forums. We shall see if that is the case as we expand the volume of conversations analysed.

Frequency V Context scoring

What is more important: The absolute frequency a brand is talked about online or the context surrounding those conversations?

The Scotch Whisky 100 has some classic examples, Tobermory stands out as one. The volume of conversations authored for Tobermory are significanlty less than the top 10 brands in the Index. However, for the range of words chosen to be positively scored against the community, it scores high. mepath has selected a weighting between the frequency and context for the Scotch Whisky 100.

However, customers of the mepath marketplace have the opportunity to view the analysis and set the scoring rules base upon what they deem to be important. This process can also be repeated by segmenting the sources of conversations e.g. whisky forums, social networks with a younger outlook or even a geographic location.

Global Whisky(e)y 100 BETA RELEASE

The year end is approaching so today we published the Beta Release of the Global Whisk(e)y 100 of leading brand based on online conversations. Why a Beta Release? 2007 is not quite complete, more conversations on whisk(e)y may still be authored and we are expanding the range of words being tracked from those in the Scotch Whisky 100 Index and we have some more testing to do on those.

These Indexes are focused on conversations authored mainly in English/American English language. People in many countries publish their blog postings in these languages but not all. This means we are experimenting with expanding the key words to include popularly used positive words e.g. good in America maybe called, awesome. In other countries other words will be appropriate.

Comparing the Global 100 to the Scotch Whisky 100 we have 28 non Scotch brands entering the index, with the Canadian brand charting highest at no. 9.

It is also interesting to look at the top ten brands. In the Global 100, some of the Scotch Whisky Brands have changed order. Indicating the expanded keywords is attracting positive scoring for some brands more the others. Country analysis is something we get asked for. We are working on the analysis to address just that question.

Feedback in welcome on the Global Whisk(e)y 100.

The finalised Global Whisk(e)y 100 will be published in the New Year.

Whisky Styles

We’ve just published an analysis of the Scotch Whisky Styles for December online.  These are very unsurprising, conversations around malts dominate online.

Scotch Regions Commentary

With two Islay Scotch brands topping the Scotch Whisky 100 Index two months in a row, would this mean the region of Islay be top of the Scotch Region chart?

The answer is no. Highland region tops the chart with Islay coming in a strong second place with Speyside coming in just behind, to take third place.

The regions are being scored on the same keywords used to compile the Scotch Whisky 100.

December Commentary: Scotch Whisky 100

Headlines:

A new brand tops the chart, Bowmore.

Highest new entry straight in at no.2 is Tobermory.

The Edrington Groups, Macallan and Famous Grouse make strong moves up to enter the top 5.

There were 21 new entries in the top 100.

Why did these movements take place?

This can be explained by asking two further questions, which are also the two most popular feedback questions we receive:

1. What online sources of conversations are being analysed?

2. What words are being used to score the brands?

Lets start with Q1. What online sources of conversations are being analysed? Thousands of new conversations have been added since the Novembers index. The range of conversations covered in December are on a much broader front, Novembers data had a high percentage of specialist whisky forum pages. This may explain why the Famous Grouse and Chivas brands that scored lowly in November are charting much higher in December.

The inclusion of new conversation sources may also explain why 20% of the Index was made up of new brand entrants in December.

Quesitons 2. What words are being used to score the brands? mepath.com has chosen the words and they are the same words used in November.

Starting in January 2008 we will provide an overview of the data sources used in creating the Scotch Whisky 100.

Feedback is welcomed on the Scotch Whisky 100.