A new class of Internet start-ups is trying to turn data into money

Using data as a competitive advantage isn't a new thing, Tesco and Amazon largely built their success on their operational data analysis and eBay didn't fall to fraud like their competitors because they had better fraud detection algorithms.<p>However I think it's becoming much more common, most non-competitive industries often have ignored data analysis as a method for competing, hence it creates an opportunity for startups to disrupt stagnant industries.

Not TFA, but....there are a few companies like this one (<a href="http://www.reveredata.com/about.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.reveredata.com/about.html</a>) who do tremendous work gathering and organizing data into something useful for consumer customers and sell off the labors of their work for a nice bit of money...a very interesting model to follow.

Every now and then you see a company do something and you go "damn that's smart". Trada was the last one for me. I had the same reaction with Klarna. That type of lending basically makes you a micro credit-card company... "issuing" you credit on a per-purchase basis.<p>Smart.

The problem with business models like readyforzero's 'sell our users information for money' is that it relies on users not realising that this will happen.<p>Users let sites like readyforzero access their personal information; if they, say, put on their front page 'It's free because we sell information on your credit card transactions so businesses can decide not to offer you credit if they look too bad', most users probably wouldn't sign up - they want to make their credit rating better, not risk making it worse.<p>Relying on consumers not knowing about business practices is not a sustainable business plan for a model that needs high numbers of users to be profitable.

In the realm of software, which is diffuclt to defend, I like how much of a barrier to entry these companies create just by virtue of collecting data no one else does. Even google can't really compete here right away, because in each vertical space data has its own dimensions and requires different methods. I imagine this is one of the areas of software still really attractive to big VC money. (Not that it ever wasn't, it's just a lot easier to build now)

I'm wondering if proprietary data startups kill the "open" internet. Do any of these companies allow users to collect all of the data that they generated and export it?

TFA, shortened: internet startups focus on processing user data.<p>This is news?