02/07/12 30 Clients Using Computer-Generated Stories Instead of Writers - GalleyCat

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TRENDS, WRITER RESOURCES

30 Clients Using Computer-Generated Stories Instead

of WritersBy Jason Boog on February 17, 2012 5:23 PM

Forbes has joined a group of 30 clients using Narrative

Science software to write computer-generated stories.

Here’s more about the program, used in one corner of Forbes‘

website: “Narrative Science has developed a technology

solution that creates rich narrative content from data.

Narratives are seamlessly created from structured data

sources and can be fully customized to fit a customer’s voice, sty le and tone. Stories are

created in multiple formats, including long form stories, headlines, Tweets and industry

reports with graphical v isualizations.”

The New Y ork Times revealed last y ear that trade publisher Hanley Wood and sports

journalism site The Big Ten Network also use the tool. In all, 30 clients use the software–but

Narrative Science did not disclose the complete client list.

What do y ou think? The Narrative Science technology could potentially impact many corners

of the writing trade. The company has a long list of stories they can computerize: sports

stories, financial reports, real estate analy ses, local community content, polling & elections,

advertising campaign summaries sales & operations reports and market research.

Here’s an excerpt from a Forbes earnings prev iew story about Barnes & Noble, written by the

computer program:

While company shares have dropped 17 .2% over the last three months to close

at $13.7 2 on February 15, 2012, Barnes & Noble (BKS) is hoping it can break

the slide with solid third quarter results when it releases its earnings on Tuesday ,

February 21 , 2012.

What to Expect: The Wall Street consensus is $1 .01 per share, up 1% from a y ear

ago when Barnes & Noble reported earnings of $1 per share.

The consensus estimate is down from three months ago when it was $1.42, but is

unchanged over the past month. Analy sts are projecting a loss of $1 .09 per

share for the fiscal y ear.

The company originated with two electrical engineering and computer science professors at

Northwestern University . Here’s more about the company : “[It began with] a software

program that automatically generates sports stories using commonly available information

such as box scores and play -by -play s. The program was the result of a collaboration between

McCormick and Medill School of Journalism.To create the software, Hammond and Birnbaum

and students working in McCormick’s Intelligent Information Lab created algorithms that use

statistics from a game to write text that captures the overall dy namic of the game and

highlights the key play s and play ers. Along with the text is an appropriate headline and a

photo of what the program deems as the most important play er in the game.”

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