GigaOM » Windows Azure Marketplace

Data markets: in search of new business models

Paul Miller — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 06:55:34 +0000

From information on U.S. census returns to the location of every Starbucks in Canada, the demand for data to support decision making is increasing. Fittingly, a number of new data markets have emerged in the past few years that provide access to this data. A wide range of companies exists in this space, and often there are more differences than similarities in the various products on offer, not to mention the many different financial models. This report describes the basics of a data market, explores the ways in which various companies are beginning to position their offerings, and looks for evidence that there is sufficient demand for this market segment to prove sustainable.

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One Man’s Data Dump Is Another Man’s Data Marketplace

Ryan Lawler — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 16:30:20 +0000

Big data sounds good in theory, but where’s the money? A few providers are not just creating huge data dumps — collecting and structuring data from multiple sources — but actually creating marketplaces for others to find and use that data. Whether it’s a big player like Microsoft and its Windows Azure DataMarket or a startup like InfoChimps, there’s a great opportunity to provide a way for enterprises to be able to access vast numbers of content stores.

But how big of an opportunity? When asked at Structure Big Data how big data marketplaces could become, InfoChimps CTO Flip Kromer quipped, “We’re the next Google.”

Moe Khosravy, the product unit manager for Windows Azure DataMarket, was a little more measured in his response. “We wouldn’t enter the business unless we saw it as a significant opportunity,” Khosravy said.

Those companies are taking a slightly different approach to the marketplace model: Kromer said InfoChimps looks at itself as the “Amazon of data, “creating an open marketplace where anyone can share his data for free, or charge for it. Meanwhile, Khosravy said Microsoft is focused on high-quality data and has set its terms to ensure that.

Either way, there is clearly a demand for what they’re offering. According to Khosravy, there’s currently friction for app makers and others who want to use data from multiple sources, but are unable to do so through a single consistent API.

There could be even more of an opportunity as certain vertical data industries become more mature and there needs to be someone in the middle to enable enterprises to sort through that data. Khosravy noted that right now you almost need a marketplace for marketplaces, since different verticals have different APIs and ways for how their data is stored.

“What we need is a generic platform for data across industries,” Kromer said. “Soon every industry will come online as a mature data industry.”

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Google Could Make Data Marketplaces Actually Useful

Paul Miller — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 17:00:00 +0000

This week, Google announced that its Public Data Explorer now lets end users upload and visualize their own data. Previously, the visualization tool had only permitted users to analyze a relatively small group of official data sets from bodies such as the United Nations and World Bank. With this release, Google may be making a move toward the increasingly crowded data marketplace, joining Microsoft, IBM, Factual, Infochimps and many others.

Key to making it easy for Google to understand the structure of data being uploaded is a new encoding format, the Dataset Publishing Language (DSPL), which enables data owners to describe structure within their data (“continents” contain “countries”), and takes some rudimentary steps toward encouraging linking concepts between data sets.

Typically, existing solutions in the space concentrate on allowing data consumers to find and then download or visualize a single data set provided by someone else. Many also target data contributors, and concentrate on enabling them to upload and then share or sell individual data sets.

Matters become far more complex when you want to start combining different data sets, even within a single data marketplace. Typically, it’s not what these services are designed for, and typically, there is insufficient metadata to enable sensible combinations. For example, “height” of buildings in one data set combined with “height” of, say, trees or mountains in another is a recipe for disaster if one is measured in feet and the other in meters. Without knowledge of the units used, the newly combined data set is worthless — and, possibly, dangerously misleading. Factual is already doing some of the work to tidy data that it collects, but Google’s DSPL is an interesting example of encouraging data owners to make these things explicit themselves. Whether it will catch on, or not, remains to be seen.

Of course, there’s plenty more to be said about data marketplaces, and to read more, check out my weekly update at GigaOM Pro (subscription required).

Image courtesy of flickr user JoaquinFuentes

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