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Many companies are finding that the social networking of their current and potential clients can be more important than the sale they might make to that client. This new way of utilizing the power of prediction and network analysis is becoming the new way to market by utilizing social networks.

An article in the Economist outlines the idea. Using network analysis software, companies can make predictions about all kinds of things in regards to their customers, users, or clients. What the software is specifically looking for in most cases are “influencers” – those who often make decisions that move other people with them.

A telecomm in India, for isntance, uses the power of predictive analysis to see who has influence with a fair number of subscribers and then targets advertising and special deals directly at those influencers. By doing so, they’ve greatly reduced their desertion rate by keeping those who influence others to change networks happy.

Corporations use it to find the most influential people in their makeup so they can utilize those people to move forward an agenda or program.

What analysts have found is that those with social influence in a given setting, be it amongst friends and family for telecom or in the corporate infrastructure, have things that can be pinpointed and then exploited. For instance, most “influencers” are people who send and receive a lot of messages, but whose outgoing messages are often longer than their incoming and whose networks are large. An influential person in the office, for instance, will likely make numerous calls to delegate authority or find out information and those outgoing calls will be long. Incoming calls are usually questions being asked of the influencer and will be shorter. The same goes for most text or email messages as well.

Software to analyze these trends and a lot of other data is entering the main stream and the technology is booming. Gawker attributes this as the reason Facebook, Google, and others have been loosening their privacy constraints and opening up more network data. There’s a lot to be had (and money to be made) by tapping into these social networks.

The inclusion of social networks into the data mining already the norm at most businesses, especially retail and online sales, is an obvious next step. Even governments are in on the tech, using it to track everything from white collar thieves to terrorists.

According to the Economist, the next step in predictive analysis is to look at even larger segments of society to predict everything from Hezbollah rocket attacks to guiding counter intelligence operations.

Intertrust has bought the assets of Seeqpod – the online search and recommendation engine. Since April 2009, SeeqPod ceased its service and has filed for bankruptcy but may now be resurrected by Intertrust. SeeqPod developed a web crawler that indexed playable search results across a wide variety of media including audio, video, podcasts and so on. SeeqPod was powered by an algorithm developed to aid biologists understand complex genetic connections called GenoPharm. This was adapted to enhance search by linking complex information in the same way the human brain might.

Now, Intertrust has announced that it has bought all software and patents produced by SeeqPod including the GenoPharm algorithm. This is nothing new for Intertrust who already hold over 150 patents in the US and over 300 worldwide but they plan to incorporate SeeqPod’s technology into search across many platforms. For example, Internet TV, targeted advertising, recommendation systems and e-music distribution are some of the potential uses for SeeqPod software.

Intertrust may also use the software in their existing digital rights management business as well in their other ventures like SyncTV and Beyond Oblivion. These in particular stand to benefit from SeeqPod technology.  The new IPTV project also stands to benefit as Intertrust has been involved in Project Canvas and Marlin. Interestingly, it has been reported that Microsoft has bought a comprehensive license to the company for a rumoured one-time payment of US $440 million which means they may now be looking to incorporate the SeeqPod engine into their music offering.

The days of obscure paper manuals could be numbered as ShowUHow gets enough money to start work on its online instruction manual service. The San Diego based business has received a $3 million investment from Syncom Venture Partners to continue developing the service.

ShowUHow has created online video guides for products sold at BestBuy, CocstCo and others – akin to an official video e-how or videojug presentation. However, unlike the crowd sourced competitors, ShowUhow’s platform can also help consumers order spare parts, register for warranties and submit support requests. The website can also generate analytics which can be helpful to pro-actively identify trends and should ultimately improve customer service.

The videos are aimed at products that consumers might find difficult to assemble or use without a manual. The videos give a live, step by step re-enactment of using the product and are more effective than a printed and usually difficult to decipher paper manual.

ShowUHow claims that its instructional videos are so good that it can actually reduce product returns and customer support costs.  Not only that, it claims that sales are also improved thanks to the increased confidence that consumers have in their ability to assemble products once they see the simple assembly procedure demonstrated in the video.

The application provides a deep benefit to consumers who would otherwise have great difficulty in following a print manual. This and the ability to order parts and complimentary products makes it valuable for consumers. In turn, sellers of self-assembly products should be willing to pay to put their products on ShowUHow.

For those involved in project management, Gantt charts have become a staple. First conceived in 1896, the chart was made popular and given its current title in 1910 by Henry Gantt.

Gantt charts have come a long way since then – particularly since the invention of the personal computer. Today, Microsoft Project has become somewhat of an industry standard when it comes to producing Gantt charts.

Now there’s a new kid on the block, a recent recipient of Y-combinator money. Gantto allows you to import MS Project files or start from scratch and create Gantt charts, all from the comfort of your favourite browser window.

Unsurprisingly, the interface is clean, slick and super easy to use with ribbons and buttons which appear or disappear when you would expect them to. There are a few themes to help you get started on the design front but this app does one thing very well and very free, for now.

Other competitors include Basecamp made by online productivity experts 37signals, but this doesn’t include Gantt functionality directly, and instead relies on external developers to fill the gap. There are more features promised by a very audience-led developer team which can only make an already useful site even more exciting.

For expert project managers and novices who want to try and get a grip on a project timeline this is a great opportunity to try a product which might become a new standard in the world of project charting. If you’re into Gantt charts Gannto might be worth a look.

Placecast, the SMS-based advertising company was founded in 2005. Since then it’s been developing its text based advertisement model. With its newly announced partnership with Location Labs, Placecast has extended its reach to over 180 million US consumers.

This means that up to 60% of US consumers could soon be receiving texts from the ShopAlerts service. This service uses the Location Labs API to allow customers of Placecast to send texts, IM’s and tweets to consumers who have opted in to receiving offers based on location and shipping preferences.

This so-called ‘geo-fencing’ model has been used by the well-known brand, The North Face. Location Labs uses carrier information to work out consumer location so no extra wireless apps need to be downloaded to smartphones or other devices. This differentiates the service from others such as Shopkick which uses Foursquare or others to harvest location data.

The targeted nature of the advertising makes this delivery mode more efficient and represents better value for money for the advertiser. At the same time, consumers must double opt-in to the service and the brands that their interested so the message is far less likely to be disregarded as spam.

Exciting times for consumers and marketers but the question is whether anyone will actually opt in. As with similar services it is the number that will make or break profitability so Placecast and Location Labs will need to make sure their combined efforts attract enough users to make the venture profitable.