Behavioral patterns are increasing in importance for software applications. You see it all the time. You are using a favorite web site for something important to you. Near your desired content in your browseri, or even sometimes in popups, advertisements appear that are amazingly close to your personal interests. We know how some of this happens because our anti-virus software identifies bots that have been installed keeping track of our activities as we work or browse the internet.
If you carry your smart phone into a store with it turned on it is possible to track where you go inside the store, how long you spend time in specific areas (what items you are looking at). They can know who you are. They can use this information for advertisements, personal profiles, and many other useful things such as making sure they are carrying the correct merchandise. Even if you don’t have your phone with you, they can use facial recognition to identify who you are with in-store cameras.
My point is not to cause paranoia. My question is simply how important pattern software is? Companies who market products gain value from understanding patterns of their customers . What about other kinds of companies? For example, my bank uses pattern profiling to block suspicious behaviors.
Last night my debit card was de-activated because I was purchasing items off of EBay. I’m 2,000 miles away from the EBay processing center, and my bank thought the frequent purchases I was making may be due to a stolen card. The bank had tried to contact me, and since my phone was turned off, they disabled the card as a precaution. A simple phone call and everything was ok. Again, the pattern was useful to protect my assets from theft, and the inconvenience of dealing with a lot of transactions due to a stolen card.
Credit Bureaus also use pattern matching to determine the level of risk you present when using credit of various kinds. Insurance companies use patterns to determine cost for different forms of insurance.
Pattern matching is not new. What is new is the radically reduced cost to gather and sift data. Also, the application of pattern profiling has grown far beyond traditional uses. How important is it for different kinds of businesses or activities? Is it becoming more of a commodity?
I think this form of using data warehousing or data mining is certainly an area that will continue to grow and would be a great place to target skills for a career. Are you using patterns for your company today? What applications of pattern matching have surprised you? Share your experience with us here, or drop an Email to btaylor@sswug.org.
Cheers,
Ben