Sailing in Data Tsunami - Part II

There was an interesting article on Open Source business models in ReadWriteWeb the had the following observation. Don't misss the presentation that discusses the topic in great detail. The article summarizes the different generations of computing and dives into detail on current generation.

"First Generation (IBM) "The money is in the hardware, not the software"
Second Generation (MSFT) "Actually, the money is in the software"
Third Generation (GOOG) "The money is not in the software, but it is differentiating"
Fourth Generation (Facebook/Twitter) "Software is not even differentiating, the value is the data" "

As we discussed in the last post, the age of Data is upon us. And competitive advantage would be gained by those who can extract unique value out of Big Data!.

One of the biggest advantages of Web 2.0/Free/Open Source Software is that it encourages end users to experiment with an open mind. When people approach with an open mind, it leads to generation of data - be it blogs, wikis, discussion forums, bookmarks. And then waves of data starts to wade through the shores of Internet all over!. People who have the skills to swim, sail through, fish around and find Pearls in the Ocean of Data are the Winners!. We saw some fine examples in the previous post. Am sure there are tons of other companies who are experimenting with Big Data Analytics in various sectors.

There are different companies taking different routes to gain the maximum advantage!. For example, while Google takes the keyword search approach for data analytics, Facebook approaches via User-Centric/Social Networking. Its interesting to see stories doing rounds on Google Vs Facebook on various sites. To me, the best is yet to happen in Targeted Advertising Technology. I firmly believe Facebook has the key and it has just not cracked it yet. And that's the biggest boon and bane for Google right now. Unless Google comes up with a breakthrough service that would outdo Facebook in near future in targeted advertising, Google would be under threat.

That's on the Open World. In the corporate world, the challenge is to generate and ensure continuous data flow that would be of value to various stakeholders. And that still remains a huge challenge and a great opportunity considering security/risk/data quality/cultural concerns within the corporate firewalls. Synonymous to Internet world, Corporates who succeed in generating useful data and extract insightful information from them would be creators of new business models in future!.