As more online applications and services begin to proliferate in the webisphere, the likelihood is that the similar services will all begin to converge to sameness as competitors race to fill in the void of uniqueness. As the characteristics of distinction begin to dissipate between all of the various services and applications, there leaves but one thing that the companies will rely on to differentiate themselves from their competitors - data. And of course whose data will they use to achieve that distinction? Yes, of course. Yours.
If information is the new oil of the 21st century, then companies will need to constantly be 'drilling' or mining for it in the form of data collection - be it overt or covert. Right now companies that collect data for personalization purposes do it in a way that reminds me of awkward and unsophisticated teenagers fumbling their way through the initial stages of romance. But a few years from now - 5 years at the most - the level of personalization that online companies will offer up to users will be so slick and fine-tuned it will be transparent to the average person how the decision to offer up that product was arrived at.
Remember that scene in the movie, Minority Report, when Tom Cruise was walking into the Gap store and the store's cameras were reading his eyes and offering him personalized ads and even clothing suggestions? That is the future - both literally and figuratively - for consumers. The irony of course in that scene is that Tom Cruise had just had his eyes replaced with another set from a dead person so that the police would not be able to successfully track him. If you recall the scene in the movie Cruise had had a set of eyes from a Japanese man, so the ads (and the accompanying hologram lady) was personalized for him. ("Welcome back to the Gap, Mr. Yakamoto. How did the assorted tank tops work out for you?"). This is approximately the state where we are at now with personalization, all due to the rudimentary way data is collected on us now as we move across mobile platforms online.
Most (rational) people agree that the Faustian bargain that the internet has offered us all in exchange for its low or zero cost is the trade-off for our data and small pieces of privacy. You would be hard pressed to find people willing to pay for the free service they have enjoyed for the last 10 or fifteen years, just so that they don't see any ads. What most of us object to really I think, is the misguided ads or offerings that waste our time and screen real estate. (Do I need to see ads for e-cigarettes if I am not a smoker?)
Big Data is what it's called but it might be better called 'Big Dumb Data.' At least for now. Yet, some companies are very rapidly moving up the pace of innovation and sophistication with the use of the resources that they are filling their Oracle databases with. Slowly but surely you can see the flashes of refinement happening, and you see a unique company or two take the lead with the information that they possess and truly differentiate themselves from their competitors. As I said, 5 years from now when we may even be at a point to be able to make sure it is indeed Mr. Yakamoto who is in need of some more tank tops when the pitch is made to him. And the only way that can be done is with data.
