Successful people are constantly vigilant of their competitive environments. News is a continuous signal that may indicate emerging threats or opportunities. Yet, news volumes have exploded over the past decade to now included blogs, message boards, Google Alerts, videos and social media content including Twitter. Some competitive ecosystems can see thousands of potentially relevant news signals every day. To make matters more complicated, competitive patterns can emerge from distant parts of the globe in our hyper-connected society. There are simply not enough hours in the day for any unassisted human to seek out, filter, read and understand the context of his or her news.

Recent solutions to this news problem have focused on "social discovery." In social discovery, a news consumer will be prompted with potentially interesting articles from a community of related people as in Linkedin, Facebook, Google+ or Twitter communities. While this form of sharing can be useful, social discovery can become an "echo chamber" of common beliefs that often fall into the trap of "confirmation bias." Social discoveries can also be limited to contemporaneous sharing that fails to connect the dots among articles over any extended time.

We have proven over the past decade that competitive patterning algorithms can do the following for the members of our news patterning networks:

• Start with the news sources that our members trust, including member Google Alerts and Twitter feeds
• Integrate relevant new sources that might produce surprises
• Discover competitive patterns for which our members need awareness
• Reveal relevant articles that are associated with competitive patterns
• Display patterns and news in animated video game like interfaces that are extremely fast in insight delivery
• Enable pattern tracking that can lead to hypotheses and anticipation of future events

There are thousands of members in our News Patterns networks across the globe who rely on our competitive patterning engines and our visualizations of patterns, news and trends. Our members leverage our network to save time and to be surprised by patterns that could not be anticipated. Every day our algorithms get smarter; our member interaction becomes simpler; and our visualizations become cooler.

Smarter news can only happen if it is simple and intuitive to our members. We achieve simplicity by enabling new members to join our public networks at no cost. Simplicity is also achieved with periodic True News Alert emails that list relevant patterns and news. Our animated News Radar interfaces display patterns and news with methods that leverage the natural human neurosciences of perception and reaction. And our new smart-phone application will extend News Patterns reach to the every place that a member has a moment to become smarter.

News Patterns was adopted by a US Senate campaign to help them stay abreast of individual news articles and to give some measure of the relative positioning of the candidates amongst themselves and key campaign issues. The campaign also needed to know if new issues or candidates might be emerging to be surprises in the election. Simple article counting was not deemed to be sufficiently informative.

Through News Patterns Intelligence Discovery, approximately fifty specific news folders were created and activated to automatically scan the Internet for relevant news, blogs, video, and social media news signals. News folders were also constructed to minimize irrelevant noise articles. With special patterning algorithms aimed at the articles in the various news folders, a visual News Radar interface was also empowered to access individual articles in the context of campaign trends, candidate associations, and front-runner estimates. News Patterns analysts worked with campaign staff to identify key competitors and issues.

On a daily basis, an email briefing of key campaign trends, potential emerging issues, and important news articles was delivered to the candidate and his staff. This email was automatically linked to an interactive campaign News Radar. This News Radar showed front-runner issues and candidates, emerging and dissipating issues, important connections among candidates and issues, and animated movies of the changing campaign landscape. In general, the campaign News Radar served as a close approximation to periodic polling results. Significant campaign analysis expense was saved. Immediate and ongoing campaign context was continually available to the candidate and his key staff members.

News Patterns was tasked to make sense of the wireless industry. In this industry, billions of worldwide cell phone users are pursued by cellular operators, device manufacturers, semiconductor manufacturers, standard setters, government regulators, and application developers. It would not be an overstatement that a trillion dollars in market capitalization is impacted by the outcomes of winning companies, devices and standards. Complicating the outcomes of these market dynamics are thousands of daily news signals that appear to be chaotic when they are not connected or framed in a relative context. A misread or missed market trend can have an adverse impact on a company, policy or investment portfolio.

Through News Patterns Intelligence Discovery, hundreds specific news folders were created and activated to automatically scan the Internet for relevant news, blogs, video, and social media signals. These folders accumulated tens of thousands of articles every week. News folders were also constructed to minimize irrelevant noise articles. With special patterning algorithms aimed at the articles in the various news folders, a visual News Radar interface was also empowered to access individual articles in the context of market trends, company associations, and leading status estimates. News Patterns analysts worked with industry personnel to identify key competitors, technologies, standards, regulations and applications.

On a daily basis, an email briefing of key market trends, potential emerging issues, and important news articles was delivered to company personnel. This email was automatically linked to an interactive wireless market News Radar. This News Radar showed leading companies, technologies, standards, devices and applications. Emerging and dissipating issues, important connections among companies and applications, and animated movies of the changing market landscape were also displayed. Over several years, the News Radar showed the changing of the basic market dynamic from standards, to leading device manufacturers, to applications, and finally to application platforms where presently Google Wireless (Android) and Apple iPhone applications occupy the center of the Wireless Application News Radar. For example, nobody could have predicted several years ago that significant device manufacturers would be relegated to the periphery of the News Radar based on emerging wireless application platforms. Movies of animated News Radars showed this "changing of the guard" in the wireless industry. Considerable market analysis expense was saved. Immediate and ongoing market context was continually available to analysts, executives and investors.

News Patterns was tasked to make sense of the alternative transportation energy industry. In this industry, crude oil and gasoline are targeted to be minimized or replaced by new technologies like bio fuels, alternative hydrocarbon sources and electric cars. Common bio fuels are ethanol, methanol, butanol, and bio diesel. Electric car topics include batteries, hybrids and fuel cells. Alternative hydrocarbons include shale oil, liquefied natural gas, synthetic coal fuels and natural gas. Added to this mix of energy technologies are oil and car manufacturing companies. Complicating the outcomes of these market interactions are thousands of daily news signals that appear to be chaotic when they are not connected or framed in a relative context. A misread or missed market trend can have an adverse impact on a company, policy or investment portfolio.

Through News Patterns Intelligence Discovery, a hundred specific news folders were created and activated to automatically scan the Internet for relevant news, blogs, video, and social media signals. These folders accumulated tens of thousands of articles every week. News folders were also constructed to minimize irrelevant noise articles. With special patterning algorithms aimed at the articles in the various news folders, a visual News Radar interface was also empowered to access individual articles in the context of market trends, company associations, and leading status estimates. News Patterns analysts worked with industry personnel to identify key competitors, technologies, standards, regulations and applications.

On a daily basis, an email briefing of key market trends, potential emerging issues, and important news articles was delivered to company personnel. This email was automatically linked to an interactive energy market News Radar. This News Radar showed leading companies, technologies, and the connections among them. Emerging and dissipating issues and animated movies of the changing market landscape were also displayed. Over many months, the News Radar showed that the much anticipated adoption of greater amounts of ethanol was problematic for several reasons. For example, as food stocks were converted into ethanol, grain prices rose in response. As grain prices rose, consumers around the world protested higher food prices. These protests resulted in government regulations against the conversion of food into fuel. Hundreds of millions of dollars of food stock ethanol plants became economically nonviable. Although the topic of food was not originally anticipated, News Patters discovery suggested that it was important and should be tracked. Once tracked, the topic of food started as a radar outlier that soon grew in connected importance to the point that it was a central topic in the News Radar. This movement of food in the News Radar preceded many economic valuations of ethanol.

Markets are defined by the complex interactions among suppliers, customers, technologies, and resources. Markets are further complicated by government regulation changes and world economic and security events. In any significant market, tens of thousands of news, blog and media articles are published every week about the events of the markets. Most of these articles are irrelevant noise. Yet patterns of relevant articles over time can portend market trends that are hidden at the individual article level. The resulting task of a market analyst is indeed difficult considering the thousands of weekly news signals that might be impacting hundreds of "connect-the-dots" relationships among competitors, customers, technologies, resources, government regulations, economic conditions and security issues.

Through News Patterns Intelligence Discovery, a hundred news folders were created and activated to automatically scan the Internet for market related news, blogs, video, and social media news signals about the wireless sector. News folders were also constructed to minimize irrelevant noise articles. With special patterning algorithms aimed at the articles in the various news folders, a visual News Radar interface was also empowered to analyze individual articles in the context of emerging competitor, customer, technology and resource connections. Similar news folders were created to analyze potential market impacts of government regulations, economic conditions and world security events. As new connections in the market emerged, the New Radar highlighted and tracked and highlighted these connections in News Radar. News Patterns algorithms also suggested new issues to track.

On a daily basis, an email briefing of key market trends, potential emerging issues, interesting market connections and important news articles was delivered to company personnel. This email was automatically linked to an interactive market News Radar where a user could drill-down into specific market connections to display actual news signals creating the new connection. Thousands of daily news signals were used to construct a visual radar interface that displayed key connections among market issues, especially new or changing connections that might indicate a new market trend. Changes in market connections were further highlighted by animated movies. Added to this daily email briefing was a wireless industry analyst's observations and insights about the connections and trends.

In a specific example out of many in the wireless sector, the News Radar clearly displayed the disruptive nature of "Tablets" since the start of 2010. In January, the topic was rather sleepy at the periphery of the News Radar. But over the succeeding months, with the important component of "iPad" news, the topic of Tablets would be drawn into the radar center with many connections to specific applications and application platforms. As the market topic of "Tablets" became more important, the operators, manufacturers and applications that were connected to it, also became more prominent in the wireless market, while other companies and technologies that were not connected became less prominent. Based on the market success of Apple's application platform and devices (including iPad and iPhone), Apple's market value passed Microsoft for the first time in history. Boom, Indeed: Apple Passes Microsoft In Market Cap. This ascendancy of Apple was analyzed article by article out of hundreds of thousands of news articles in the first half of 2010 by News Patterns engines, Radars and analysts.

Voter polling is an important part of any campaign strategy. Yet, such polling is expensive. Polling is also only effective if the right questions are asked. News Patterns has been adopted by state and federal campaigns to help them stay current with individual news articles and to give some measure of the relative standings of the policy or candidates with voters. Campaigns also need to know if new issues might be emerging that could be surprises in the election. Simple news collection was not deemed to be sufficiently informative. Although polling was used, its use was limited due to cost constraints.

Through News Patterns Intelligence Discovery, 25 or more news folders were created and activated to automatically scan the Internet for campaign related news, blogs, video, and social media news signals. News folders were also constructed to minimize irrelevant noise articles. With special patterning algorithms aimed at the articles in the various news folders, a visual News Radar interface was also empowered to access individual articles in the context of campaign trends, candidate associations, and front-runner estimates. News Patterns analysts worked with campaign staff to identify key competitors and issues. News Patterns algorithms also suggested new issues to track.

Not long ago, a national candidate was having a conversation with News Patterns personnel. It was his contention that "Health Care Reform" was the top political issue in the United States at that time. Nevertheless, the News Patterns Discovery showed that "Economy," "Jobs," "Security," and "Taxes" were all more prominent than the "Health Care Reform" topic in the News Radar. Shortly after this conversation, two events proved to verify the insights of the News Radar. Exit polling from gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia showed that topics of "Jobs," "Economy," and "Security" were all more important to voters than "Health Care Reform" at that time. Also, the Pew Research Center conducted a concurrent poll about the US public's priorities for 2010. At the top of the list were "Economy," "Jobs" and "Terrorism" (which corresponds to the security issue.) "Health Care" was again further down the list. Therefore, the collective intelligence of thousands of publishers writing hundreds of thousands of news and blog articles, captured and analyzed in News Patterns analysis engines, closely approximated actual polling results. Additional benefits of News Patterns in this polling example are that the News Radars are continually reflective of patterns in the news, and the radars discover issue topics that are not thought of in the polls.

Significant companies and political campaigns simultaneously touch many different geographic regions. Each region may have specific competitors, customers, products, regulations, economic issues, voter blocks or election issues. In a multi region intelligence discovery process, one can easily accumulate a hundred or more news folders or alerts, each dedicated to searching for relevant news articles. Hundreds or thousands of news, blog, video, or social media articles can be collected every week. The challenges are to find the relevant articles, keep trends in a useful context, discover emerging trends and topics, and identify trends that are common among the different regions in spite of overwhelming volumes of individual articles.

An international semiconductor company needed a better market awareness across its global interests. Through News Patterns Intelligence Discovery, hundreds of specific news folders were created and activated to automatically scan the Internet for relevant news, blogs, video, and social media signals for all world regions. These folders accumulated tens of thousands of articles every week. News folders were also constructed to minimize irrelevant noise articles. Various company offices and local PR agencies complemented automated news searches with manual additions. With special patterning algorithms aimed at the articles in the various news folders, a company resource of individual articles in the context of market trends was created. Embedded swarm intelligence functions further highlighted important articles based on tracking collective company interactions with the news. News Patterns analysts worked with company analysts to identify key competitors, technologies, customers, standards, regulations and applications.

On a daily basis, email briefings of relevant articles were delivered to company personnel. Swarm intelligence functions automatically prioritized the most important articles. Users in the network could share the smart news folders created by colleagues. RSS feeds of important news were directed to private Intranet sites. Regional news was aggregated with other regions. Regional folders were created to import global news with regional topics. Sales and business developers benefited from special folders dedicated to their customers. Contract PR expenses were reduced in excess of $400,000 per year. A superior system of market discovery was created at a significant operating cost reduction.

News Patterns is a unique news intelligence discovery system based on sophisticated pattern recognition that is supported by innovative graphical interfaces. Our interfaces are supported by massive news collection systems and powerful noise reducing filters. The collection of news can be from any combination of public, private, or subscription based sources, including existing customer email alerts. Our interfaces deliver immediate news article displays as part of user drill-downs in addition to animated movies that display market or campaign trends over long periods of time. As a discovery technology, News Patterns transcends the problems of "confirmation bias", current news cycle fixation and news without context. In general, News Patterns enables our clients to be surprised by market or campaign trends that were not part of predetermined searches or alerts. In combination with this discovery sophistication, News Patterns also delivers simple email summaries that can be complemented by analyst interpretations.