Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Gutierrez:
What is something a small number of people know about that
you think is going to be huge in the future?
Smallwood:
One thing I think will grow exponentially is anything in the world
of motion, text, and language analytics. Basically anything in the non-numerical
data world will grow very fast. Specifically to text, I find what Twitter is doing
to be really interesting, especially the skills around taking that super-fuzzy text
data and being able to identify important patterns. I think this is an area that
will really explode.
Gutierrez:
What is driving the growth in text analytics?
Smallwood:
More and more mechanisms are dealing with text data because
we're able to handle larger volumes. You used to have a multiple-choice ques-
tion where you had to answer a, b, c, or d, and then that data would get
encoded. Well, now people can just answer open textings and we have ways
to interpret those text blobs mathematically.
It's still a complex problem because the world of ontologies and text interpre-
tation and disambiguation. This brings a lot of really hard challenges. However,
products are evolving in the right direction because more and more collection
mechanisms are collecting that data and are able to handle those volumes. So
companies that make products as easy as possible for the customer are going
to evolve things in the right direction, which often means voice or text inputs
and analytics.
Gutierrez:
Does Netflix have anything in the pipeline around voice?
Smallwood:
We have an experimental talking UI named Max on the PS3. Max
talks and tries to be conversational with the things that he's trying to ask you
like, “What kind of mood are you in?What would you like to watch?”We haven't
yet started doing things in the other direction, where customers are speaking.
We do have pointer devices, so that's one step in the motion direction.
Gutierrez:
What advice do you have for people to do great work?
Smallwood:
I think it's huge to embrace your curiosity. You should never
quite feel satisfied with an answer and you should always essentially have
more questions than answers. Enjoying that as a sort of way of life really goes
a long way. Being able to connect your own work to things that you're pas-
sionate about also goes a long way as well.
Personally, I really love trying to understand people through their data, espe-
cially if I can have a way to cycle the understanding back to them with the
hope of helping to improve their world. So for me, anything where I get to
try to understand people and improve their world as a result is especially
gratifying. And that's different for every person. So I think its super important
to find whatever the connection is for you that makes you feel excited about
what you're doing.
