Jan 31 : Startup

5 low-profile Big Data Startups (gigaom.com)

Big data is hot, but infrastructure-level platforms such as Hadoop, which focus on storage and processing, still need help to take them into the mainstream. They need a killer app or two that will let companies analyze, visualize and act on all that data without hiring a team of Stanford Ph.Ds, or that will let developers write big-data apps without having to reinvent the wheel. read more

Jan 30 : Transit

Bus data suddenly top secret (emcottawawest.ca)

The writing has been on the wall for months, but the powers that be at OC Transpo made it official last week: the transit authority thinks it's a bad idea to give citizens direct access to information about where their buses are. The new attitude flies in the face of the city's relatively new and progressive policy on "open data" - streams of information about city services and infrastructure that can be used to power mobile and computer applications ("apps") to give people easy ways to make that data useful for taxpayers. read more

Jan 28 - 29 : WEEKEND WIT

Jan 27 : Travel

Big Data meets Online Travel (forbes.com)

Big Data and a high-speed analytics engine helped a travel agency deliver answers to would-be holiday makers fast, before they impatiently moved to another site. When a large German travel company asked the Cologne-based consultancy empulse for help with its online travel site, the group agreed. The consultants had, after all, worked with the postal service on electronic tracking and with electric utilities on using smart meters. So how hard could travel be? read more

Jan 26 : Home Living

What big data and smart thermostats can reveal about us (gigaom.com)

Energy software startup EnergyHub is powering around 100,000 connected thermostats in the U.S. with its management software called Mercury. While that might not sound like a whole lot, those 100,000 thermostats are producing around 5 billion data points each month, and that’s starting to reveal some interesting trends about how Americans consume energy.  read more

Jan 25 : Healthcare

Big Data delivers deep views of patients for better care (forbes.com)

Big Data has arrived st Seton Health Care Family, fortunately accompanied by an analytics tool that will help deal with the complexity of more than two million patient contacts a year, usually attended by dozens of existing patient record pages and generating more with each visit — some electronic, many notes in phyiscian’s infamous handwriting, some transcribed from dictation and others jotted down on X-rays. read more

Jan 24 : General Topic

10 Ways Big Data is creating the science fiction future (io9.com)

Sometimes, it already seems like the websites you visit know more about you than you know about yourself — but this is just the beginning. Every day you're helping to generate masses more data, which computers are getting better and better at crunching. How long will it be before the predictive power of these systems becomes so powerful, they're almost magical? read more

Jan 23 : Retail

Applying Big Data to 2011 Holiday Shopping (smartdatacollective.com)

By most measures, 2011 holiday sales saw solid gains. Overall retail sales rose 4.1%, according to the National Retail Federation. And while 2011 holiday sales didn’t achieve the 5.2% gains made during the 2010 holiday season, they still outpaced the 2.6% growth over the past decade. read more

Jan 21 - 22 : WEEKEND WIT

Jan 20 : General Topic

Big Data Analytics Trends for 2012 (allthingsd.com)

Over the last several years, there has been a massive surge of interest in Big Data Analytics and the groundbreaking opportunities it provides for enterprise information management and decision making. Big Data Analytics is no longer a specialized solution for cutting-edge technology companies — it is evolving into a viable, cost-effective way to store and analyze large volumes of data across many industries. But how will this translate to adoption of these new technologies?  read more

Jan 19 : Smart Grid

Data challenge in Smart Grid (aol.com)

AutoGrid, a smart grid startup, is tackling what may be the industry's hardest problem – how to manage it as an integrated system, not just a series of adjacent, siloed apps that occasionally swap data. With its basic "engines" up and running, AutoGrid is turning its attention first to demand response (DR), where it will try to aggregate disparate systems into an integrated whole. It plans to take data from edge devices and from SCADA systems and from its own forecasting engine. And then to crunch that data to make DR dispatch highly scientific and highly efficient. read more

Jan 18 : General Topic

Data Analytics can backfire without experts (informationweek.com)

Software vendors will tell you their analytics tools provide complete "solutions," but skip skilled statisticians for the heavy lifting at your own peril. The cost for your organization to acquire business analytics tools will likely be much higher than the cost of acquiring statistical talent. And the cost of incorrect analyses, and the resulting misguided decisions/directions, could be an even more significant cost to your company. read more

Jan 17 : Visualization Startup

Big data company Splunk files for IPO (gigaom.com)

Splunk filed for an IPO on Friday to raise up to $125 million in the first public offering launched by a big data player. Splunk is important because its search, analytics and visualization technologies address the sweet spot of demand between the reams of big data generated by the second and the ability to parse and display that data in a meaningful way. After downloading the tool and connecting it to the relevant feeds, a mere mortal — not a data scientist — can work with Splunk to put that data into an easily understood visual format. read more

Jan 16 : General Topic

Image by nature.com

What is big data? (oreilly.com)

Big data is data that exceeds the processing capacity of conventional database systems. The data is too big, moves too fast, or doesn't fit the structures of your database architectures. To gain value from this data, you must choose an alternative way to process it. read more

Jan 14 - 15 : WEEKEND WIT

Jan 13 : General Topic

Data Science vs Business Intelligence (information-management.com)

Data Science and BI differ in the foci of their investigations. Data Science is consumed with supporting the development of data products. BI, on the other hand, is all about measuring and managing business performance. BI has become obsessed with absolute answers using complete, precise, high-quality information, while data science often bludgeons solutions, settling for approximate responses from incomplete but massive data sets. read more

Jan 12 : Data Services

Customer Lifetime Value: Will it pay off? (knowledgeatwharton.com)

Customer lifetime value (CLV), a marketing formula based on the idea of spending money up front, and sacrificing initial profits, to gain customers whose loyalty and increased business will reap rewards over the long term. Software companies are increasingly turning to subscription-based business models through cloud computing. Companies that deliver services over digital networks and websites have the ability to collect data about how and where consumers are using their services. read more

Jan 4 : Fantasy Sports

numberFire: Data Science for Fantasy Sports (betabeat.com)

Numberfire is a New York startup company taking an algorithmic approach to crunching data, helping fantasy sports fans find the best players at the lowest prices. Founder Nik Bonaddio got his first $100,000 in seed capital from Regis Philbin, after starring in an episode of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.  Co-foudner and COO Sean Weinstock says “We’ve got 20,000 registered users now and are planning to expand to basketball and baseball in the coming months. read more

Welcome 2012!