4 ms·

Exactly. Though I would go even farther than that. Similar to "People don't pay for drills, they pay for holes", "People don't pay for data, they pay for decisi

by arohner 16y ago

Exactly. Though I would go even farther than that. Similar to "People don't pay for drills, they pay for holes", "People don't pay for data, they pay for decisions". Data without actionable decisions are worthless.

dman 16y ago
Bloomberg and Reuters would like to disagree. The collection of reliable cleaned data in the real world is such a chore and has such a strong network effect that it is a good model on which to build a business upon. Eg Mint might have cashed out because of the buyout but yodlee is going to see a check every year from intuit for a long long time to come.
- arohner 16y ago
  Yes, with emphasis on reliable, cleaned. That data is worthwhile because it is actionable. The value-add in FlightCaster or Fair Isaac is that it converts unactionable to actionable information.
  - dman 16y ago
    I havent used either Flightcaster or Fair Isaac extensively. A cursory glance at their websites suggests that both companies actually transform the available data substantially, almost to the point where it is fundamentally new information. Flightcaster does this with their Machine Learning voodoo, while Fair Isaac does it by summarising and analysing existing data to create a credit score / report. In either case there is a worthwhile value add. From my point of view what these two companies do is very different from Reuters and Bloomberg who take great pains to not do analysis (that would be a conflict of interest with their clients). In short - the post I replied to made the assertion that data by itself has no value. I quote - "People don't pay for data, they pay for decisions". The two examples I provided (Reuters and Bloomberg) provide merely scrubbed data, they do not provide analysis. Hence there appears to be a sizeable market for data.

4 ms·

Exactly. Though I would go even farther than that. Similar to "People don't pay for drills, they pay for holes", "People don't pay for data, they pay for decisi

by arohner 16y ago

dman 16y ago
Bloomberg and Reuters would like to disagree. The collection of reliable cleaned data in the real world is such a chore and has such a strong network effect that it is a good model on which to build a business upon. Eg Mint might have cashed out because of the buyout but yodlee is going to see a check every year from intuit for a long long time to come.
- arohner 16y ago
  Yes, with emphasis on reliable, cleaned. That data is worthwhile because it is actionable. The value-add in FlightCaster or Fair Isaac is that it converts unactionable to actionable information.
  - dman 16y ago
    I havent used either Flightcaster or Fair Isaac extensively. A cursory glance at their websites suggests that both companies actually transform the available data substantially, almost to the point where it is fundamentally new information. Flightcaster does this with their Machine Learning voodoo, while Fair Isaac does it by summarising and analysing existing data to create a credit score / report. In either case there is a worthwhile value add. From my point of view what these two companies do is very different from Reuters and Bloomberg who take great pains to not do analysis (that would be a conflict of interest with their clients). In short - the post I replied to made the assertion that data by itself has no value. I quote - "People don't pay for data, they pay for decisions". The two examples I provided (Reuters and Bloomberg) provide merely scrubbed data, they do not provide analysis. Hence there appears to be a sizeable market for data.