>Is there really much of interest in press releases, or were they just a handy corpus you had around?
Actually, both. Corporate marketing departments spend a lot of effort crafting the proper press releases. Entire agencies exist to help companies with press releases. I think we make a great companion tool for professionals in that area. We have an example of how EffectCheck can help with press releases on our blog [1].
>On a tangent, how does your system interpret common HN words like "healthcare", "Obama" and "education", I wonder? Could you have an "intellectual" or "hacker-ish" dimension based on manual categorisation of words into "this is stuff HN should be talking about" vs "this is stuff that belongs on reddit"?
We certainly can do that, and we offer it as a service to clients that want hand-crafted, demographic-specific dictionaries (like political campaigns).
Actually, both. Corporate marketing departments spend a lot of effort crafting the proper press releases. Entire agencies exist to help companies with press releases. I think we make a great companion tool for professionals in that area. We have an example of how EffectCheck can help with press releases on our blog [1].
>On a tangent, how does your system interpret common HN words like "healthcare", "Obama" and "education", I wonder? Could you have an "intellectual" or "hacker-ish" dimension based on manual categorisation of words into "this is stuff HN should be talking about" vs "this is stuff that belongs on reddit"?
We certainly can do that, and we offer it as a service to clients that want hand-crafted, demographic-specific dictionaries (like political campaigns).
[1] http://blog.effectcheck.com/2011/04/14/delivering-bad-news-a...