SAN DIEGO, June 12, 2000 – Stone Analytics today announced the creation of a new Internet-based meeting place for industry and academia in the fields of applied statistics and modeling. The site, called SecondMoment, is an on-line magazine featuring news, resources, and a discussion forum dedicated to analytical issues of interest to business.

"SecondMoment is both a platform for showcasing cutting edge academic research, and a resource for industry analysts and businesses interested in applying the latest statistical and analytical tools and technology," said Vince Stuart, Director of Analysis at Stone. "Business people are realizing as never before the importance of analyzing and using their data to their best advantage, and while they themselves may not be mathematicians or computer scientists, they can certainly understand the concepts and the potential in their application."

SecondMoment™ takes its name from the variance in a random distribution. When studying a distribution of random numbers, the "first moment" is the mean or average value. This is what businesses have traditionally used to determine what is "typical." Simple averages, however, can often be tremendously misleading. The "second moment," or variance in the data, produces a much more accurate picture of what the figures actually mean.

"The more analysis one does, the more apparent it is that getting numbers to tell their story is part art and part science," said Christy Joiner-Congleton, president of Stone Analytics. "Ignore the science and you can easily reach the wrong conclusions. Ignore the art and you have expensive analysis you can't use.  Stone Analytics is all about bringing the right mix together to address real-world business issues."

The premier issue of SecondMoment features a discussion of Text Mining, an exciting new technology that aims to harness the incredible volume of textual material available on the Internet. Future issues will focus on profiling, clustering, and other topics of interest to the emerging e-marketplace.

About Stone Analytics
Stone Analytics, Inc. is a privately held provider of analytical services, statistical model building, and customized decision-support applications. The firm specializes in the areas of customer relationship management and customer valuation, and is a sponsor of the Open Source CRM initiative (http://www.OpenSourceCRM.org).  Based in San Diego, California, the firm is located on the web at http://www.stoneanalytics.com.
 

Contact:

Stone Analytics, Inc.
Robert Hahn
rah@stoneanalytics.com
(858) 503-7540 x211