Forbes the newest of clients using computer-generated stories instead of writers
Remember that old joke about getting a whole bunch of monkeys together in front of an equal number of typewriters and then creating the works of Shakespeare?
Well welcome to the modern day equivalent – Narrative Science.
Here’s the blurb to give you an idea of what their spiel is and why it is becoming an attractive alternative to some surprisingly major news brands.
Narrative Science has developed a technology solution that creates rich narrative content from data. Narratives are seamlessly created from structured data sources and can be fully customized to fit a customer’s voice, style and tone. Stories are created in multiple formats, including long form stories, headlines, Tweets and industry reports with graphical visualizations.
So far Narrative Science has signed up 30 client and while they haven’t released the full list of their clients The New York Times did find out that trade publisher Hanley Wood and the sports journalism site The Big Ten Network were among those on the list.
Now we have word that Forbes has signed up to use the software and here is a recent excerpt from a Forbes psot about Barnes & Noble that used the Narrative Science software:
While company shares have dropped 17.2% over the last three months to close at $13.72 on February 15, 2012, Barnes & Noble (BKS) is hoping it can break the slide with solid third quarter results when it releases its earnings on Tuesday, February 21, 2012.
What to Expect: The Wall Street consensus is $1.01 per share, up 1% from a year ago when Barnes & Noble reported earnings of $1 per share.
The consensus estimate is down from three months ago when it was $1.42, but is unchanged over the past month. Analysts are projecting a loss of $1.09 per share for the fiscal year.
Not bad for a bunch of electronic monkeys eh, just don’t let Duncan know about this okay.
via Galley Cat
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About the Author
Steven Hodson Steven has been around the tech world long enough to see most of the stuff we think of cool happen before which leads to a certain bit of cynicism that has contributed to him being known as the cranky old fart of the Internet. Besides sharing some of the goodness that he finds with you here at 42x you can also find him curating some digital goodness at Winextra (tech type stuff) and Rotten Gumdrops (for your daily dose of WTF).
