Text Analytics: A Primer

Editor's note: The following is an interview with University of Illinois professor and text analytics guru Bing Liu, conducted by marketing scientist Kevin Gray, in which Liu concisely outlines the current state of the field. Kevin Gray: I see "text analytics" and "text mining" used in various ways by marketing researchers and often used interchangeably. What do these terms mean to you? Bing Liu: My understanding is that the two terms mean the same thing. People from academia use the term text mining, especially data mining researchers, while text analytics is mainly used in industry. I seldom see academics use the term text analytics.