Affective | Interfaces tracks faces, looking at differing facial expressions to help you harvest and pick through data to help find what consumers are in fact thinking about your products. They are making a large bet on so called “emotion marketing.” They claim that 90% of new products fail, and that using focus groups to avoid this is difficult.
They have a patented algorithm that helps track emotional responses to products, to help get past the problems the traditional focus groups have. They begin by gathering content, the creating a research example for testing, then they collect data from hundreds or even thousands of users. This moves past the possible homogeneity of focus groups in a similar area.
The data is then put through their patented algorithms and then processed to bring you data about how people react, linked together by a timeline, to your sample. The program can in fact actually graph your emotions on a line graph to track how happy you are frame by frame. It works so well it is in fact terrifying.
They are contemplating working on a Skype application to track you like a mood ring for a conversation. They are releasing an API and are moving towards a beta. They are openly looking for new customers, and partners right now.
The business model here is sort of brilliant. It basically allows for some massive outsourcing of focus groups. You can form a group of people from anywhere so long as they have the software installed and any webcam. I’d invest.
