I was writing my end of 2012 post, but someone told me the world is also ending today. So here goes-
1) More than 175,000 views in 2012 meant Decisionstats.com chugged along nicely this year as well. That makes it 5 years of being a snarky,eccentric,niche analytics blog. Happy Birthday to you and me.
2) Thanks to people who have sponsored the server costs in the past and currently – AsterData (2009-10), Predictive Analytics Conferences (currently) and Rapid Miner (currently). Please let me know if you want to sponsor your company in a banner ad. It helps with the server and coffee /tea costs a lot, and it keeps the nose slightly up of water. I changed servers from rackspace back to wordpress.com, and discontinued the newsletter services from the service provider because of tech issues.
3) I also managed to get the R for Business Analytics book out. After two years of telling people I am writing a book (like my family, friends, assorted pretty strangers in cafe, my ex-wife’s lawyers)- I managed to write it.
So You cant sponsor an ad . Buy the book. Support Decisionstats.com
4) Enough self noise. Lets talk analytics.
1) R did well. RStudio became the most happening R startup, hiring Hadley Wickham (Santa R Package) , and further consolidating their grip on the R Developer market (estimated 30 % of 2 million devs use it) and in a fitting launch , gave us Shiny to make R a true web apps platform. SAP Hana and Oracle R entered the R services too. Oh and Revolution Analytics changed the CEO (again) – but David Smith blogs on and on. it is easier to stay President of USA than remain CEO of Revolution Analytics
(He will kill my neck if he catches me with my wisecracks)
2) SAS did well. It stuck to its guns on concentrating on thought leadership in analytics, services and solutions aimed at customers. You cant stay in business in a technology area for 4 decades without developing some iron nerves and patience. Lots of bloggers tell them what to do. They dont just write blogs, they ship code.
3) IBM did well, and became bigger. The Big Data everyone mentions is actually referring to number of zeroes that IBM spends on acquisitions. Seriously, dude. No – they continued to change their approach by making a complete eco system on this space.
4) Google did hmm okay. Kinda disappointing. Nothing blew up. No one sued them. Fined them. Same old boring Google, same great search engine. Some things didnt change (and shouldnt)
5) Facebook went for an IPO. People got screwed. No wonder some old people get scared of IPOs.
6) Social Media grew bigger. and bigger. Caused some arrests in India. But they remain a good source of Big Text Data that waits for someone to kick marketing ass with. The USA had its four year elections which is a big driver in social media noise for the rest of the Internet /Planet. Nothing changed actually. Same old hope and change stayed the top guy.
7) Anonymous hacked websites. Julian Assange dodged the police. Bradley Manning stayed in Jail. Cyber hactivism grew stronger. No springs in Arabia. No spring in Africa. The digital divide exists, and human beings still starve as you read this on your tablet computer.
8) I discovered Louis Armstrong and Jazz. This probably doesnt count as a top ten update. But hurrah for writing my own blog.( and yes I wished I discovered Go Down Moses before)
Did you write your own blog in 2012. No? Hmm . There is your New Year Resolution for 2013.
9 ) M
ainstream media hurts so much is the reason people read poetry and technology blogs
10) Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. We all need a break. Enjoy yours safely.
DECISION STATS 
Hi Ajay. I’m a bit late. But, a sincere thanks for visiting my blog and for the follow.Happy New Year! Will catch you soon.
I’d be happy to buy your book, but I must confess that I think that US$ 47,36 (at Amazon) for an e-book is quite expensive! In general I’m willing to pay up to US$ 25,00 in any e-book. The marginal cost of an e-book is almost zero, so there is only the sunk cost to be recovered, and I don’t think it has to be so expensive…
Anyway, happy new year. The blog is quite good and if find the boak of a better price I’ll buy it.
yes you have a point. the good thing is prices of e books come down – it used to be 57$ when it first got launched. I guess you can combine it with a discount or holiday gift offer- all the best.
remember the publisher sets the price and the writer gets a very small fraction..your feedback is noted though
still all the best for the new year.
Yeah, I know authors don’t get most of the price. Actually, that’s one of the reasons I don’t want to pay so much for an e-book. I’d be quite happy to pay US$ 45,00 if most of it went to authors. I’m a Phd myself and though I never wrote a book, I did write my PhD thesis and I know how hard it is. So, 45 dollars to an author or authors is quite reasonable. But not so much to a publisher. I know they provide some services (distribution, review etc.) but I don’t think US$ 45 is fair, specially if most of the money goes to the publisher and to the retailer, in this case, Amazon.
well it is my first book so my opinion could change. I dropped out of my Phd. Why wait 5 years when all I want to do is in front of me-
Also I dont think writers are good at editing, proofing, marketing books. I wrote and self published 4 e-books of poems .
A single Hollywood Movie makes more money than all the books that a scientific publisher makes in a year. Not all books sell well, and the inefficiency in the system should go down once we have better technology and better competition.
In the meantime, we have books to write and books to read. Happy New Year to you