MEMPHIS, TN (abc24.com) - Billions of thoughts are posted online everyday and now a company called "Decooda" is setting up shop in Memphis to track and sell your online thinking.
It created a program that can analyze massive volumes of social media data. The company is partnering with the University of Memphis. Decooda employees say their program can process more than 5 billion documents or "emotions" a day and in real time.
Companies can use social media to figure out what you like with a click of a “like” button on Facebook or “tweet” about a product, but only to a certain point.
"If you think about social media data it can be billions and billions of posts in a month so we needed a way to analyze big web scale streaming and apply thousands of algorithms on this data so we can get this real time insight,” said Chief Technology Officer for Decooda, Charles Wardwell.
Decooda goes beyond a Facebook "like", it uses a program to measure how you really feel about a brand based on what you post online. Decooda does it with a specific science and the University of Memphis is a huge part of it.
"You would think that out of all the universities in the country, Stanford, Harvard, MIT that type of insight would come from those schools but it actually comes from here,” said Wardwell. “This (Memphis) is the hub of this inter-disciplinary science team."
But what about “big brother?” Wardwell told ABC24 News they make sure their work respects a person's privacy.
"We don't get involved in any private data what so ever. You're posting that information publicly, I am unhappy with brand x or y and that's public, everybody sees that,” said Wardwell.
Emerge Memphis, a non-profit business that supports startup companies, is thrilled to have Decooda in the Bluff City.
"They're creating jobs here in Memphis and so they're out there raising capital, trying to grow jobs in our community, and we want to be very supportive of that,” said Emerge Memphis Executive Director Eric Mathews.
Decooda can analyze blog posts, news articles, transcripts, and social media sites. The results are given to companies who may adjust their marketing based on those results. Decooda will officially open its doors in Memphis next week.
