Web scraping is used for, among other things, getting the vast volumes of publicly available data needed for training algorithms for machine learning (ML). The relationship between data scraping and ML is, however, symbiotic rather than one-sided. On the other side is ML’s ability to improve the fundamental procedures underlying web data gathering, making it […]
Web Scraping for Science and Policy
Back in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic was in its earliest, scariest stages, researchers found that localized search trends could predict outbreaks more accurately and quickly than other measures. User-generated inputs on the internet provided access to useful and actionable insights. All of the predictions had been garnered from Google Trends and similar search-engine-based tools. However, there […]
Is Machine Learning a Good Fit for Your Product?
Click to learn more about author Juras Juršėnas. Not all machine learning applications have been met with resounding success. In fact, there’s a lot of disappointment involved. From overly ambitious projects to the expectation of ever being a finished product, machine learning is marred with false hope. I think Andrey Kurenkov has done a stellar […]
Stepping into Web Data Parsing: An Overview
Click to learn more about author Juras Juršėnas. As far as I can remember, the usefulness of online public data was always pitched against the efforts of extracting and structuring it. However, going from raw data to a well-structured and parsed output takes a considerable amount of time, effort, and resources. Even once the initial […]