New Brunswick, N.J. – February 27, 2014 –Data collected by Connotate, the leader in intelligent web scraping, has generated six news stories in major media outlets over the past two weeks, the company announced today. Stories ranged from a deep look into Airbnb’s practices to predicting if the Superbowl would be a commercial bust to determining the best New York neighborhoods for a last-minute Valentine’s Day dinner.
“The use of web-sourced data in investigative journalism is a great example of its potential and power,” said Keith Cooper, CEO of Connotate. “And it’s just one way – out of hundreds – that web data can be used. In fact, today our customers are using Connotate-sourced web data to improve everything from competitive and market intelligence to lead generation and contact management and far beyond.”
Connotate employs sophisticated machine learning science to automate many previously manual data extraction tasks, and to ensure that processes are persistent – that is, don’t break down if a website’s content and design change. Connotate provided to reporters the structured, organized data sourced from public websites that allowed them to arrive at fresh, fact-based insights.
Skift reporter Jason Klampet turned to Connotate to supply him with web-scraped data to determine whether the New York State Attorney General’s office had a case against new apartment-sharing company Airbnb and claims of New York City lodging and tax regulation violations. Using automated Agents to pull specific data, , Connotate intelligent agents delivered a full month’s set of listings for New York City, including inventory, availability, unit management, super-hosts and more. On February 13, Skift released two news items: “Airbnb in NYC: The Real Numbers Behind the Sharing Story” and “The 10 Airbnb Super-Hosts That Rule New York City.”
CNET picked up the story and came out with its own, “Study finds 66 percent of NY’s Airbnb listings may be illegal – A dive into Airbnb’s listings reveals an interesting breakdown of the dwelling types available on the site, according to data-crunching firm Connotate.”
Caryn Ganeles of the Village Voice used Connotate’s data and infographic addressing 3,000 Manhattan restaurants to report the good news – the romantic West Village had the most seats available – and bad news – procrastinators had little chance of gaining entry into high-end restaurants for peak-hour meals. The story, “What’s the Prime New York Neighborhood for Valentine’s Day?” ran on February 14.
Just before the Super Bowl hit New Jersey, dropping ticket prices and an increasing number of hotel vacancies made spectators wonder whether the big game was turning into a big bust. Connotate’s automated Web agents tracked the costs among tickets and hotel and determined patterns that gave the media the necessary insights to understand the situation. USA Today provided its coverage in “Super Bowl sales might be a sign of challenges ahead.” The New York Daily News published “Owners of hotels nervous about vacancies days before Super Bowl.”
About Connotate
Connotate puts the power of Web data monitoring and collection into the hands of the business user. Connotate delivers the scalability, reliability and resiliency necessary to drive strategic value from dynamic Web sources. Connotate’s growing customer list includes global businesses such as McGraw-Hill, Associated Press and Thomson Reuters. Connotate has been named a KMWorld “Trend-Setting Product” for the past eight years. Connotate announced the acquisition of Fetch Technologies in March 2012. For more information, please visit www.connotate.com or www.connotate.co.uk.
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Media Contacts:
Ed Cunning
Middleberg Communications, LLC
212-812-5670
ecunning@middlebergcommunications.com
Gina Cerami
Connotate
732-296-8844
gcerami@connotate.com