This Forbes article includes some great examples of business models evolving to make money and improve our lives through mining and sharing data. The businesses are not making money immediately but are investing in data capture, analytics and partnerships to start capitalizing on their data for long term revenue.
Key points in the article:
- Your data combined with those of thousands of other people can tackle bigger problems such as cutting your company’s health care budget or sparing the nearby utility from building another power plant.
- Smart-thermostat maker Nest Labs has quietly built a side business managing the energy consumption of a slice of its customers on behalf of electric companies.
- In wearables, health tracker Fitbit is selling companies the tracking bracelets and analytics services to better manage their health care budgets, and its rival Jawbone may be preparing to do the same.
- These companies are capitalizing on the terabytes of data they collect from consumers and, to an extent, on the largesse of taxpayers. State governments have increased the money–from $1.3 billion in 2003 to $6 billion in 2012–allocated to helping utilities manage energy demand, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
See full article - http://www.forbes.
How can we leverage our data either directly or with business partners/customers to generate revenue and solve big problems?