VISUAL.LY - DATA VISUALIZATION WINS.

I saw this tweet earlier this week:

Without a doubt, data IS the new oil.  The world is awash in it.  We’re flooded daily with news, data, sound bites, tweets, status updates, check-ins, photo shares, pinterest points and the list goes on.  Sure, we have more information but are we more informed?  Hard to tell.

I do think that fragmentation and access to many communication channels have complicated rather than simplified our ability to synthesize data and information efficiently.  Today, it’s more difficult to assess and curate good information from the torrent storm of data that is available to us.

That’s why data-analysis type business models are becoming more important in today’s world.  Even as Steve Jobs correctly described that the Internet “will destroy vast layers of the economy” (Smithsonian Interview: April, 20, 1995) delivering a dramatic re-ordering of business process, it has also created a growing need for data analysis tools to comprehend what’s going on.

At the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this year, I saw three key areas that were prominent:

  • mobile marketing
  • mobile payments
  • DPI - deep packet inspection visualization platform solutions

What’s the common thread between all of them?  Data and analytics.  Data is everything.  As the tweeter said, “processed and refined, it powers the world.”

One of my favourite new companies is Visual.ly because it marries data on the web and infographics to visualize data and trends.  In my first test run of the platform, I decided to use twitter data to compare characteristics between two key profiles.

I used the twitter profile for MobileMonday Toronto (@momotoronto),  a leading wireless industry networking association I co-founded in 2005, and compared it to our sister chapter, MobileMonday Tokyo (@momo_tokyo), since we announced a joint-platform partnership to co-promote our mobile ecosystems and cities.  (More info here from our press release: http://mwne.ws/HhUJt4)

The end result was an infographic that was illuminating and funny at the same time. (See below or an enlarged image here: bit.ly/HoXT2y) It also quickly highlighted some key differences between the twitter profiles that I would not have been able to easily distill without a powerful tool like Visual.ly.  Data is the NEW OIL.

Kind regards, Alexander S. Bosika, t: @abosika

Mobile World Congress 2012: Recap (Part 1)

My key headlines from a week of pure madness at the world’slargest mobile show with attendance breaking 67,000 - a new high compared to a reported 29,000 at the 2004 opener.  Barcelona is host to the world’s great mobile show for the next four years.

“There will be an Android in every pocket”

A  new technological “middle class” is emerging to play “a decisive role in changing society”

“A mobile experience at least at the level of today will be available to almost everybody, at a fraction of the price.  In 12 years, handsets are going to be 20 times faster, which means phones that cost USD $400 now will be available for USD $20.”

—  Google’s Eric Schmidt

Schmidt did highlight the worrying rise in complex legislative and regulatory frameworks that hinder Google’s ascent in the US and in 25 countries where they are completely blocked from a total of 125 from which they operate.

INDIA and AFRICA

“The difficulty we have moving forward to the next business model is the lack of a cheap smartphone”

“A USD $50 device would dramatically alter the landscape”

— Sunil Mittal, Chairman and MD of Bharti Airtel

Factoid:  

  • India only has around 5% smartphone penetration in India (even less in Africa)
  • Smartphone penetration has reached 10% in Russia

RUSSIA

“Mobile data will replace voice as the main revenue earner” — VimpelCom CEO, Jo Lunder

Their view: The small screen would dominate how emerging markets access the Internet.

LATIN AMERICA

“Smartphone penetration is growing fast, and we expect mobile broadband to contribute around a third of all data traffic by 2013. But to continue with this growth we also need affordable smartphone”

— Santiago Fernandez Valbeuna, Chairman/CEO of Telefonica Latin America

More notes to come.  This was a packed event.