Perkolating

How working co-creatively can transform your businesses.

LOVE the idea of group “Data Dives” (that include creatives) for business

via The Toad Stool by Alan Wolk

“But while the Like button has become ubiquitous and a seeming smash hit for Facebook, it does not appear to be used in any consistent manner. That was its selling point: a lower key way for users to indicate approval for a brand, but it’s also it’s Achille’s heel: if users aren’t displaying any sort of consistency in the way they use the like button, then the resulting data is fairly inaccurate and not all that useful. (Bye-bye monetization.)”

Fantastic post by Alan.

via VentureBeat by Justin LaFayette

“The current media hype around Big Data has clouded where the real opportunity is: software applications that exploit Big Data.”

Great insight on the Big Data hype!

by Lance Ulanoff

Number 1 and 2 are what I’ve bet my career on, so this is reassuring to hear from Mr Ulanoff.

1. Second Screen Revolution

Here are some stats for you:

• More than 80% of smartphone and tablet owners use these devices while watching TV.

• At least 25% of U.S. smartphone and tablet users use the devices while watching TV multiple times per day.

• 51% of those who post on social media while watching TV do so to connect with others who might also be watching the same thing.

• 24% of Facebook users report posting about the movie they’re watching (in the theater!).

In other words, the Second Screen has arrived, but the revolution awaits us. In 2013, brands, media companies and marketers are going to get far more aggressive and inventive when it comes to second-screen engagement. During a recent panel I moderated for Viacom’s integrated marketing group, Mondelez’s (a Kraft spinoff) VP of Global Media Bonin Bough reported engagement is far stronger for second-screen integrated marketing programs than for traditional online brand advertising (read “banners”).

Marketers see blood in the water, and in 2013 they will release the sharks.

This is not a bad thing, but the old days of getting the full entertainment experience on screen 1 (TV, movies) is quickly coming to an end. Companies will expect you to watch their shows and see their product pitches with smartphone in hand and tablet (still usually the iPad) on your lap.

Meanwhile, a legion of second-screen engagement enablers like Shazam,Zeebox (both of which were on my panel), Viggle and GetGlue are lining up to help you connect big-screen consumption with small-screen activities.

Their goal will be not only to enrich your viewing experience, but to also extend the consumer connection as you turn off the TV and walk out the door with your smartphone in your pocket. Twenty-four-seven entertainment and branding will be the norm in 2013, though you won’t always be aware the connection between what you saw on your first and second screen at home and what your smartphone is telling you as you pass the local Wal-Mart.

2. Big Data

Part of the solution of that puzzle will be data—whole bunches of it.

Thanks to the Internet and our ubiquitous, always-with-us and always-on smartphones, companies are capturing mountains of data about us. And 2013 is the year they finally figure out what to do with it.

One reason companies and marketers will more readily embrace big data is because they’re finally starting to trust it. The 2012 Presidential Election was a validation of data over guesswork. This may lead people to think that is that somewhat vertical (politics) set of data can be so telling, what can all the socio-demographic-geographic-activity data they’re grabbing now tell them.

In 2013, we’ll see the fruits of that data: targeted information on all channels, new discoveries that impact all walks of life based on deep data dives. We’ll have better products, sharper and more insightful predictions (on future elections, weather; basic needs like food, water, shelter and energy). We’ll also see the rise of the Data Scientist.

At this year’s Technomy in Tucson, Ariz., Annika Jiminez, senior director of Data Science at Greenplum, described the role and requirements for new Data Scientists. She explained that they have to be more than smart statisticians.

“They must have very strong programming skills and foundational statistical chops and communication skills.” That last skill will be critical because for all the support there is for the rise of Big Data, many companies still don’t get it. The Data Scientist has to be the cheerleader.

The best of these scientists will “optimize, predict, score and forecast” and, in the process, change our world.

Click the link at Top for full list. 

via The Math of Revenue by Brian Sathianathan

If you take a minute and think about the acronym as with many other acronyms it is over-hyped. In my opinion social mobile local is so yesterday, local is a subset of data collected based on geo location.  The more accurate technology trend is : Social, Mobile and Data. 

The point I am trying to make is that startups can play successfully in the BIG data space with open source technologies and still build formidable platforms at relatively lower cost.  That means every startup that is in the mobile or in the social space is also naturally  participating in the data space [ even if data sales  is not a part of their Business Model].

via Reuters by Paul Smalera

The data pieces are valuable, but not solely because they help advertisers sell more widgets: In an email, Gnip Chief Operating Officer Chris Moody explained one of the coolest uses of data his company has enabled may have actually helped firefighters do their job better: “During the 4 Mile Canyon Fire in Boulder in 2010, [Gnip customer] VisionLink was able to provide fire crews and managers a realtime view into what was happening on the ground by layering geo-tagged Tweets and Flickr images onto a Google map of the area.”

So, yes, to adapt an old Internet meme, All your Tumblr (and much of your other social history) are belong to Big Data. But that’s not necessarily bad, if all the power of social media belongs to all of us. Whether that’s a worthwhile trade-off all depends on how we use that power, and what we finally do with all that data.

via Bluefin Labs

To call what’s happening a torrent or an avalanche of data is to use entirely inadequate metaphors. This is a development on an astronomical scale. And it’s presenting us with a predictable but very hard problem: our capacity to collect digital data has outrun our capacity to archive, curate and – most importantly – analyse it.

-”Why Big Data is now such a big deal” John Naughton, The Guardian