Netizen: Can You Taste It?

Image representing Facebook as depicted in Cru...

This kind of data mining might make Facebook a lot of money. LinkedIn is doing it, Facebook is not doing it.

Social Media Are Giving a Voice to Taste Buds

Visitors to the new Lay’s Facebook app are asked to suggest new flavors and click an “I’d Eat That” button to register their preferences. So far, the results show that a beer-battered onion-ring flavor is popular in California and Ohio, while a churros flavor is a hit in New York. ..... sets up Facebook chats between engineers and customers to help refine products. “It’s amazing that we can get that kind of real feedback, as opposed to speculating” .... Wal-Mart acquired the social media company Kosmix last year for an estimated $300 million, chiefly because of Kosmix’s ability to extract trends from social media conversations. .... “There’s mountains and mountains of data being created in social media” ..... @WalmartLabs found that cake pops — small bites of cake on lollipop sticks — were becoming popular. “Starbucks had just started getting them in their cafes, and people were talking a lot about it” ..... @WalmartLabs found that enthusiasm for “The Avengers” and “The Dark Knight Rises” was surging before the movies were released, and suggested that stores increase their orders of related merchandise. And after Walmart started carrying a spicy chip called Takis, @WalmartLabs found that most of the positive chatter about it was coming from California and the Southwest. .... Frito-Lay has already run the contest overseas, resulting in chip flavors like hot and spicy crab in Thailand and pickled cucumber in Serbia. ..... “Data can’t tell you where the world is headed” ..... using data from social media said the ability to see what consumers do, want and are talking about on such a big scale, without consumers necessarily knowing the companies are listening in, was unprecedented. “This is like the biggest focus group someone could ever imagine”