by Angela Guess
Antone Gonsalves of ReadWrite.com recently declared that the age of data wars is dawning. He writes, “In 2020, the annual amount of digital data created, replicated and consumed will total more than 5,200 gigabytes for every man, woman and child on the planet, according to a new International Data Corp. report. That’s 50 times the amount of per-person data than in 2010. Once it’s consumed, almost all of the rough information today effectively vanishes in the overall ocean of data. Yet within the data are tidbits of facts on customers, suppliers and business operations that, if linked, could prove useful or even profitable. Seeing the potential, some businesses are sizing up the trove – the data they control and other’s. We are on the cusp of the data wars.”
He goes on, “Developing high-value, competitive information from one’s own data will be expensive enough, but a lot of data that today is shared like almost-interesting dross will command a price. Formidable data walls will separate foe and ally alike. Consumers will try to wall off their data too. As the value of their personal data rises, they will demand more compensation in the form of services if nothing else. This will open up new avenues of competition between companies. Internet companies are becoming ever more protective of (some would say paranoid about) their customers’ data, keeping it from competitors. This month, Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, took steps to prevent photo-sharing on Twitter. Facebook and Google have been scuffling over data sharing for two years.”
photo credit: gluemoon
