Now that the frenzy of South By Southwest Interactive has settled down, we wanted to share some of the new types of projects that emerged in the first quarter of 2014.
- Crowdsourced Image Analysis: Using the crowd for business-to-business competitive intelligence projects based on satellite imagery. Once confined to national intelligence agencies, complex image analysis projects can now be handled piecemeal via crowdsourcing.
- Trend Analysis: Filtering targeted news feeds and sources to identify trending topics in specific disciplines. Sentiment analysis may be old hat, but being able to predict what topics will be popular is now within reach.
- Distributed Call Centers: Deploying private crowds to handle telephone verification projects is now a reality. Using localized teams to match accents (and even languages) of the callers and those called is the next frontier.
- Open Data 2.0: Using new APIs from emerging data “middlemen” and dedicated research to add value to large sets of open data. The days of DIY open data projects are ending as governments, open data advocates, and specialized private firms work together to make massive amounts of valuable public information generally available in a usable way.
All in all, 2014 is shaping up to be a year where productivity in data management will make some large strides. And as the flow of data gets even better, cheaper, and faster, we expect to see a number of exciting information opportunities opening up.