This the last in my series of predictions. The first two posts are:
In the first post I made a statement on the volume of information:
"Not only are we creating more information but the exchange of this information is accelerating"
Part of the reason that information exchange is accelerating is that the technology now permits it to become "viral" (nothing new here). However, not all networks behave in a viral way similar to an epidemic. Networks are built on nodes and how the nodes interact with the network may be better explained by game theory. An interesting article in Nobel Intent explains how nodes work.
"a network with a lot of connections between people increases exposure and then adoption, as do links stretching between dissimilar groups. When the trend in question spreads to a node with a lot of connections (like a celebrity), its popularity explodes. While this is fitting for some cases, in others it's an oversimplification—a person's exposure to a trend doesn't always guarantee they will adopt it and pass it on.
"It is not only the intrinsic value of a new technology (or other types of innovation) that makes it attractive. It is also the number of friends who have adopted it," Amin Saberi, one of the authors, told Ars. In instances where there is incentive to make the same decision as people around you, the authors of the paper argue, the spread of innovations may instead follow rules of game theory, which differ in big ways from the rules of viral or epidemic trends."
The notion of an incentive in decisionmaking brings us to the question of validation. Everyone is focused now on just creating the social networks. When all this information starts bombarding us there will be more than a need for just information capture through a Facebook or organizing the information through a Rockmelt browser. I think one of the very big opportunities for new business will be in validating data and information.
An example may clarify. Some people check the traffic each morning before they leave for work. Maybe they listen to the radio, check Google street view or Twitter or use another source. However, every source of information is independent and not integrated with another source and every source is at a different point in time. It is quite a challenge to integrate all the data sources, adjust for time differences and come to a valid conclusion.
An additional complexity is that not all of the sources of information are equally credible. The chart below shows the credibility of different sources of information. (Source: Edelman Digital)
Note that trust in our friends is declining, which suggests to me that as we increase the interactions with our friends through social media we are finding them less credible. Note also that college professors have the highest credibility...so you should believe what I say here :)
Now to the business opportunities in validation:
- I think there is a big opportunity to integrate different sources of data to improve the overall quality of the information. This story about IBM and NATO illustrates the work being done on integrating data
- I think there is an opportunity to provide greater credibility to search results by providing richer detail on who has viewed a page result. A link on global warming that was viewed by 400 scientists would probably be a more attractive source than a link viewed by 400 government officials, according to the Edelman index above. To have any comments made by the scientists on the page would be richer yet (think of the Zemanta "related articles" feature)
- While the federal and state governments are very advanced in providing historical information, they are quite weak in providing real time information from their various sources in all the formats (audio, image, video, etc.), such as police, firemen, environmental officials, etc. Tapping into these confirming sources of information and then integrating it (1 above) with public information, without being arrested, is another interesting business opportunity
Of the three predictions, validating information is the most interesting to me and I plan to come back to it in future posts.
