Product Description

Introduces business and technical managers to the exciting new frontier in database technology
Web sites gather a lot of detailed information about customers. Unfortunately, most companies lack the means to use that information to improve their marketing and customer support functions. Considered by most experts to be the new frontier in the database and data warehousing fields, Web mining solves that problem. Coauthored by two bestselling data mining authors, Mining the Web explains, for corporate decision makers, IT managers, and database marketers, how data mining principles and techniques can be applied to various types of Web sites. More importantly, they describe techniques for using the resulting goldmine of business data to develop more effective advertising campaigns and better customer service.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #117779 in Books
• Published on: 2002-02-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

From the Back Cover
Learn how data mining can help achieve your business goals–from the leading author team writing on data mining today!

Web sites gather a lot of detailed information about customers. Unfortunately, most companies lack the know-how to capitalize on this information in order to improve their marketing and customer support functions. Considered by most experts to be the new frontier in the database and data warehousing fields, data mining can help change all this. Data mining techniques can be applied to the Web with results that can lead to more efficient and successful advertising campaigns, better customer service, and, ultimately, increased profits.

Written by two bestselling data mining authors, Mining the Web shows you how to identify your most profitable customers, attract them, and, most importantly, keep them coming back. Linoff and Berry review specific data mining and analysis techniques for monitoring customer behavior and explain how to conduct marketing tests to better understand customers.

They begin with a look at how the Web can create new opportunities and challenges for data mining, and then offer a basic overview of different approaches to mining the Web, including a summary of those data mining techniques that work best for Web mining. The remaining chapters then demonstrate how to apply data mining to specific types of online businesses, including:

• Click-and-mortar retailers
• Online retailers of digital content–including sites that sell music and others that sell information
• Advertising-driven sites that need to find new ways to attract the right audience
• Auction sites and B2B trading exchanges that need to predict the best prices for items
• Subscription sites that want to sell content to specialized audiences

Wiley Computer Publishing
Timely. Practical. Reliable.

About the Author
GORDON S. LINOFF and MICHAEL J. A. BERRY are the founders of Data Miners Inc. (data-miners.com), a consulting firm specializing in data mining. They provide analytic CRM consulting for customer-centric companies on and off the Web. They are the authors of Data Mining Techniques and Mastering Data Mining (both from Wiley).

Customer Reviews

Mining the Web
I found this book to be most helpful and thorough, I was immediately inspired to practice these useful tips and easy to intuit instructions.

I continue to use it for reference as a resource manual. I highly encourage anyone just getting interested in the concept of data mining, anyone in sales, marketing, public relations, and analytics to start with this book first. After reading this book you will have a strong foundation into data mining applications and a vivid sense of direction on how to make it work for you personally!!!!

Comprehensive book about web mining, although not technical
Since I started a new project on behavioral targeting in online advertising, I decided to buy Linoff and Berry's book: Mining the Web (Transforming Customer Data into Customer Value).

The book starts by briefly explaining data mining with a marketing point of view. The next chapter describes the three different approaches to mining the web: mining structure, mining usage patterns and mining content. In my case, I was mostly interested by mining usage patterns, for example web logs. The following chapters are very general and give an overview of online retailing, digital content, advertising, customer value, customer tracking, etc. One good point of the book is that it contains several short industry case studies. Although not technical, they help understand how things work in big industrial projects.

To conclude, Mining the Web is an interesting introduction for people interested in applying data mining techniques to the web. Altough this book answers the "what" question, it doesn't answer the "how". Since it is a non-technical book, you will definitely need other resources for a deeper understanding of the field. The advantage is that the book is easy and pleasant to read from the beginning to the end. If you are interested by the field, you should also consult Jesus Mena's book: Data Mining Your Website (although a little older).

Another winner from a great team
I own Berry and Linoff's first two books on data mining (Data Mining Techniques and Mastering Data Mining); they're the best, and this book lives up to their standards. All three are great for not just teaching the technical stuff, but how and when to apply it to solve problems I really face at my company.