How to exploit the 'Data Gold' ?

Mass of data collected

In its recent research, Ascent Journey 2016, the Atos Scientific Community considers how viable economic models for internet applications will emerge. Nowadays a mass of data is collected, especially from consumers in B2C business and a lot effort is spent in exploring the consumer behavior. We are used to providing personal data for valuable user services free of charge. Georg Orwell’s vision of the totally controlled and transparent individual seems to come true. Every day, we produce already an enormous data footprint in our private as in our business life.

Self-regulation

The discussion about privacy has reached society and governments struggle to keep the pace with regulations in line with the vast volume of services being developed. Luckily there is a certain kind of self-regulation. Consumers are aware of what happens, knowing they are the product (or rather, their personal data is) in case of using products and services not fully charged or free of charge. On top of that data, scandals kill image and trust faster than it could be built by these kinds of B2C services.

Sharing private core-data

While most enterprises still concentrate on exploiting their own data with more and more sophisticated methods, known as business intelligence, the revolution is fueled by connecting and sharing information in between organizations. But sharing private core data is not an option, as people do not want their personal data and companies their core IP exposed. But during the creation of this core data additional contextual data can and is already collected by sensors and machines based analytics. This context data or generated metadata is of use for the collecting enterprise and other how they may share it with. It is, therefore, the context collected and the data about the data that acquires a value.

Real 'Data Gold'

Rewarding the consumer for the use of this metadata without compromising the control of his personal data is the real 'Data Gold', opening new collaborative opportunities even cross industries in B2C as well as in B2B business. As the business models especially the cross-industry ones are complex and often not obvious, the first collaboration step should be taken on common platforms facilitating the sharing of context and metadata.

Cross-industry services

These platforms enable the ‘network effect’ in multi-sided markets, a positive influence in between the different platform participants making services commercially viable that would be in classical supplier consumer models unsustainable. With this in mind we imagine entire new cross-industry services with a new level of user experience. Driven by the different consumer perception of consumer services business models behind will change (radically) from known models like freemium or classical consumer supplier into a more collaborative cross-industry digging for ‘Data Gold’.