By constraining our field to data science for prediction, we make the field less human — and less accessible as a result — There is a tremendous difference between data science for understanding and data science for prediction. The former is understanding why people use the 🙃 emoji and what emotional states they are trying to communicate— and how this differs across cultures and age groups. The latter is predicting that if someone…

(by Hamdan Azhar, with contributions from Fernando Hidalgo and Aysha Choudhary) The 2016 US presidential campaign has been called one of the most divisive in recent history. We were curious about how people used emojis to express their emotions on Election Day. So we used Twitter’s Streaming API to collect…

Today, we published our first article in Forbes breaking down the more than $1 billion spent so far in the US presidential election. Check out the entire piece which includes great visualizations from their design team. Sometimes, a map is easier to understand, and we wanted to share the data in a way that hasn’t really been done before. So here it is. One interactive map, where each point represents an individual or organization that received at least $100,000 from one of the top seven presidential campaigns this season. In total, the 565 points on this map represent $775.8 million in spending. (Red is for spending by Republican candidates and blue for Democrats. The larger markers indicate organizations that received at least $10 million.)

The first ever conference on emojis — Emojicon — will be held from November 4–6, 2016 in San Francisco. See below for the abstract we just submitted :) Check out the site for more information about registration and the calls for submissions. Hope to see you there! UPDATE (11/1/2016): We’ll…

We were just interviewed by MOTHERBOARD about our Kanye West and Taylor Swift analysis. Here are some great quotes from the piece entitled “A Data Scientist’s Emoji Guide to Kanye West and Taylor Swift”: “What can emojis tell you about celebrities and their fans? Data scientist Hamdan Azhar, founder of emoji analytics company Prismoji, pondered this age-old question in the wake of some fresh Taylor Swift and Kanye West drama.”

At Prismoji, we believe that emojis — as a “new type of language” — are a major key for understanding popular sentiment in a digital age. Specifically, emoji data science, a largely unexplored field, represents a powerful new methodology for fast, data driven journalism. Last month, we published our first…

Quartz recently published a short article tantalizingly titled “The world’s reaction to Brexit, in emoji.” (Brexit is the colloquial shorthand for Britain’s vote in favor of exiting the European Union.) …

“Passing” through Trump’s America — KEENE, N.H. — The young woman lies in wait as Ted Cruz exits his campaign bus — “CRUZIN’ TO VICTORY” embossed in fire and brimstone red against the matte black finish. …