Using only the tools available

A few weeks back there was a very interesting article called Data Mining 101: Finding Subversives with Amazon Wishlists that basically showed how to do simple data mining using Amazon wishlists as a data source. A lot of people saw this article (I won’t say read for a certain reason) and started talking/blogging about how shocking it was that all of this data just out there for anyone to harvest.

This of course misses a big point of the article, that the source of the data isn’t that important, it more about what you can do with that info. A lot of people missed that point, but hey, that’s ok. (Honestly, anyone who was upset that their wishlists can be viewed by the public at large really shouldn’t be posting that information on the net in the first place, no?)

For me this article was amazing because it showed data mining using simple, readily available tools. No fancy databases, no complicated AI programs, just simple script files and the file system. That’s the real beauty of the article the fact that it can be done by anyone (ok, anyone not running Windows). Simplicity really is the key, ya know?