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Real or Not

I like this blog post about how product x is the real deal whereas the wannabes y and z are distant also-ran. The analogy with the self-driving car made me want to read it to the end. While the author does a great job describing how to spot a wannabe, the distinctions between real and unreal blur a bit when he transitions from self-driving cars to the problem at hand - his product vs those of the competition. An average reader would track just fine as long as the talk was about cars. Once we go to data and analytics, the story falls short. We believe him when he says:

 It’s true others are trying to add search to their platforms as a feature or through acquisitions, but when it comes to analytics, search is not a side hustle. It is the same analogy. Just like it’s easy to add a radar and camera in any old car, but very hard to make it truly self-driving, it is easy to add a search box on your UI and show demos, but very hard to make it work in real life.

 The real question that does not get answered - is product x is the true self-driving car of data. I have seen the product in action a couple of times and was not completely sure that it was. Maybe it really is but its hard to tell unless you have deep and direct knowledge of the data being used in the demo.

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