Cruising On the Wi-fi Waves

Smartphones, smart watches, smart boards, now smart ships. Cruise ships, that is. For any of you who have previous traveled aboard a vessel of the sea, you know the struggles of on-board internet. Super slow speeds, practically dial-up, on the few computers in the "library" room keep ships stuck in the late 20th century. Well, not anymore. Royal Caribbean has announced their new SmartShips and Carnival has announced their new "Got Wifi?" campaign, with other cruise lines quickly following the fleets.
Fortune magazine does a good job of mentioning three key points to this new innovation incorporated into the ships - a step toward the future, new customer opportunities, and customer satisfaction. Faster wi-fi is the key to these upcoming successes in the cruising industry. "O3b Networks, a company that provides ship-to-shore communication systems, started working with Royal Caribbean back in 2011 to upgrade its internet connections. It developed a new type of high-throughput satellite which quadrupled connection speeds, according to Steve Collar, O3b’s CEO". These new speeds transport cruising from a pre-connected time into the current era. Because of the new internet availability found on board, businesses can now take their business conferences, training, and other trips via cruise ships without losing connection to the business world they need to stay connected with while on the trip. Whether this be via internet communications or simply business workers working on the vacation, it means many new customers for cruise lines. But business workers aren't the only new clients gained; millennials that can't seem to be separated from their connections can now stay connected while cruising, opening a whole new world to them.  With wi-fi so readily available now, people stay connected to social media, posting and sharing how much they're loving their cruise-cation, thereby promoting the cruising company and expanding their customers in that aspect as well. After a few trials of the new wi-fi systems were imposed, customer satisfaction jumped 50% because of the connections now available. Such improvement shows wi-fi is a strongly desired aspect of life nowadays, and now not only is it readily accessible from the seas, but the accessibility and connectivity are ever expanding and increasing to support the high demand of the quick-paced connected world we live in.
Unfortunately, the Fortune article fails to mention the losses this new implementation brings forth. It also focuses only on the wi-fi aspect although it is clear more advanced technologies are involved in the new smart ships emerging.
While it is true that this is a major step for cruise lines and cruise-goers, the importance of escaping the prison of a strong cellular or internet connection shouldn't be given up so easily. The world is full of natural beauty, and cruises are certainly a great way to get to experience a lot of that beauty, but if your nose is in your phone 24/7, why bother going on a cruise when you could do the same thing from home?

Fortune Article

Interana Analytics Company is Why Tinder Has New Great Features

Tinder is an application (app) used on smart phones to find local singles in the area. Recently, Tinder has enhanced its dating app with a “Super Like.” This feature allows the user to indicate to a perspective match that they are more interested in the perspective match than any other user within that 24 hour period. This new feature was developed by Tinder through the use of another company called Interana. In a press release that was republished on a reuters.com, Interana’s service is highlighted as being critical to analyzing how users interact with the app. As a result, Tinder has come out with new features, one previously being mentioned the “Super Like.”  Furthermore, Interana is practically a high profile company with valuable experiences: “Interana is founded by top technology experts from Facebook, Intel, LinkedIn, Google, Apple, Netflix, Oracle, Symantec and VMware, and is backed by venture capital firms Battery Ventures, Data Collective, Fuel Capital, Index Ventures, SV Angel, and YCombinator” (Woods). This blog will emphasize the major aspects of the press release as well as some things not mentioned explicitly in the press release.

One thing to note is the velocity or the rate at which Interana provides information to Tinder: “Tinder's Interana instance has passed the trillion rows of event data threshold, so being able to obtain insights in seconds with Interana vs. the hours it used to take has proven invaluable” (Woods). Additionally, Interana’s service is multifarious in nature: “Using Interana's simple and flexible behavioral tools, Tinder is able to quickly understand user behavior, reasons for conversion and retention, root cause, as well as types of connections made” (Woods). Lastly, the improvements are implicitly felt by its users or at least the ones who are scrutinizing potential matches too swiftly: “For instance, using Interana, the team realized that a small percentage of users were swiping right on every profile, potentially decreasing the value of matches. As a result, when company launched Tinder Plus shortly after, it also introduced a limit in right swipes each user could perform each day” (Woods). Something amazing happened when Tinder started to synthesize the data analytics provided by Interana: “Since introducing this [limit in right swipes] just 10 days ago, we’ve seen a 25% increase in the number of matches per right swipe, a 25% increase in the number of messages per match, and a 52% decrease in spam bots (another of our biggest user complaints)” (Tinder Blog).

Moreover, there are other things to consider that this press release has not provided. One being the concept of big data that Tinder is now entering the realm of. Big data in loose terms is an extremely large data set. Another way to define it is data that has high amount of volume, variety, and comes at a high velocity. Consequently, it is imperative to note the ways in which tech companies are now utilizing other tech companies for business improvements. Lastly, the range of products offered by Interana may not have been easily identified in the press release: “By using Interana's behavior-based tools -- like funnels, cohorts, metrics and sessions -- for visual and interactive ad hoc exploration and discovery of data, Tinder's product team is able to identify key user behaviors” (Woods). For a firm experimenting with the idea of using these tools, it may prove beneficial to mention a moniker for specific tools.

Bibliography

"Keeping Tinder Real." Tinder Blog —. Tinder, 11 Mar. 2015. Web. 30 Oct. 2015.
Woods, Natasha. "Tinder Swipes Right on Interana's Behavioral Analytics for Event Data." Reuters. Thomson Reuters, 28 Sept. 2015. Web. 29 Oct. 2015.