I <3 data!

Data mining is huge, and has been taken to a whole new level.

Did you know this kind of thing is going on?

Good or bad, I'm still on the fence...

"Cat owners lean slightly for Democrats, dog owners trend Republican." - You learn new things every day...

For generations, politicians lacked the means to study us as individuals. So they placed us into enormous groups—blacks, Jews, gays, union members, hunters, soccer moms—and treated us as masses. While the rich and well-connected got to collar candidates at $1,000-a-plate dinners, the rest of us were processed as herds.

Nowadays, Spotlight and other microtargeters (for both parties) continue to place us into big groups. But the divisions are based more on our behavior and choices, and less on the names, colors, and clans that marked us from birth.

Thanks Stephen Baker - http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jan2009/tc20090123_026100.htm