Collective[i] Changing the Way Data is Analyzed

According to Google’s Executive Chairman and former CEO Eric Schmidt, in just two days enough data is produced to equal the amount produced from the dawn of civilization to 2003. To put it differently, what used to take thousands of years to produce now only takes two days. A new business startup, Collective[i] wants to analyze that data in a new way making it easier to find and analyze.

Having that much data produced every two days is not only an opportunity but also a problem. Where do we store all of that data and how do we find the useful information within the seemingly useless? A company like Google gives us a way to search through the data and find information that matches a search but with millions of returned results, how do you find what we’re truly looking for?

For businesses that collect large amounts of data relating to the performance of their products or services, analyzing the data at a deeper level is difficult but Collective[i] is working to change the way data is analyzed.

What if one of the products you sold was hot chocolate and you wanted to know if running commercials on unseasonably cold days made your sales rise or if the cold temperatures alone were enough to boost sales without paying for the ads? What if you wanted to get instant, real time reaction to people’s thoughts about your new advertising campaigns by analyzing Facebook and Twitter chatter?

In the past, analyzing the data from multiple sources and putting it together to produce one picture was time consuming, expensive and full of errors. The more times the data was changed and transferred, the less reliable it became but Collective[i] automates that process with their new cloud based service that pulls data together and presents it in standard, easy to read and analyze format.

By pulling together information from multiple sources and compiling them in to a standard format, business owners can create reports and manipulate the data in new ways.

The company has been operating behind the scenes for most of 2011 as they test their product but in that time they’ve not only won over big companies like 1-800 Flowers.com and flash sale website, gilt, but they’ve received a large amount of venture funding as well.

Some technology analysts are calling 2012 the year that we truly learn how to analyze data and Collective[i], a product operated by Cross Commerce Media, is a startup in a perfect position to capitalize on that theme.