Nowadays, data or big data is important not only for research but also for business. Every business needs data in order to make the right choice or strategy, stay competitive and gain profits as much as possible. The big data market capitalization right now is around 100 billion dollars, and it is predicted to grow steadily. With a big potential like that, it's such a waste if there's no platform where data buyers and sellers could interact directly to buy or sell their data. Datablockchain aims to serve that purpose.
There are several key issues regarding the current big data market. These issues cause many problems and loss for the parties being involved. By addressing this issues, it is possible that the big data market could grow more than predicted, and at the same time, bringing more benefits for the parties involved. Datablockchain wants to solve all of the issues below, but for this article, I'll focus on the problem so that we can understand the importance of each issue.
Without further ado, below are those key issues.
The Disconnected Data Market
According to Datablockchain whitepaper, the current data industry right now is fragmented and complicated, and this is true. The fragmented part comes from the fact that there is no single, connected, global platform that is able to connect data owners, listing owner, data managers, data brokers, data buyers, sellers and any other parties in the data industry.
In the current status quo, most of the time, data buyers need to find the sellers or data sources using their own creativity. For example, by placing an ad on the internet, contacting potential parties (by their own judgment) about their business, or using their business connections to find potential partners. It doesn't stop here, they have to follow a lengthy process to get approval to use/buy their data. On the other hand, data sellers are hard to find the appropriate buyers if they don't have any previous connections to other parties. They tend to use marketing without any measurable result which can be interpreted as a waste. Because of this, potential data for many businesses would not reach its fullest potential and bring benefits as much as possible.
One survey showing the importance of data monetization in business. Source: Brunswick
The simplest way to solve this issue would be to provide a platform where data buyers and sellers could interact as soon as possible, without any additional fees when they browse or trying to find the other parties. Negotiations can happen directly on that platform, or, they can find the buyers/sellers that match their own criteria. Imagine it as an online store for data, just like other e-commerce that you probably used before. See the difference between when you buy online or when you have to travel around the city to find a pair of jeans that you wanted to wear for the weekend? That efficiency and effectivity of finding the suitable jeans for you will also happen in the data market. Datablockchain will provide this solution for ya.
Inefficient and Ineffective Data Transactions
Another problem in the current data market is the costly and time-consuming transactions and deals. Buyers and sellers can't sell or buy data as soon as possible because they have to contact each party directly and wait for a further response to avoid an error such as getting unnecessary data for the users. In fact, this process can happen twice or more as long as they still don't get the appropriate buyers or sellers. Without a platform where negotiations and finding buyers/sellers can happen as soon as possible, it is nearly impossible to cut the cost of data transactions between business.
Why does such a lengthy and costly process happen in the first place? One reason is that there is a needs to find a reliable data from the data buyers, while the data sellers wanted to find legit buyers with the best prices. In order for both parties to find what they wanted, they have to negotiate, verify, and calculate the price for each potential buyers/sellers. Because of that, the cost of getting the data or selling their data is as big as the profits when they've successfully acquire or sell the data that they have. How to solve this? Just like before, providing a platform where buyers and sellers could interact directly is the key.
Leaving Small & Medium Business on the Sideline
That high-cost, time-consuming and lengthy process of data transactions between buyers or sellers cause a big barrier for small and medium business to enter this market. Such barriers, in turn, cause them to become less competitive as big business has the advantage of getting the data that they needed to formulate their marketing strategy, product, or even establish partnerships to ensure their customer to trust and loyal to them.
This disadvantage, at one point, can be a disaster for the small and medium business. Ironically, most of the business in this world is comprised of small and medium business, amounting to more than half of the business players in the world, contributing a lot of domestic gross product for each country regardless it is developed or developing countries. If this problem keeps going, it is very possible that those small and medium businesses will decrease.
An infographic about small and medium business importance in the market. Source: Click and Be Free
In order to solve these problems, then we need a platform, or place, where those small and medium business can enter and use directly. This will help them effectively because they don't have to use a lot of money to join the party. Small and medium business can focus on getting the buyer or seller that they needed, negotiate or processing their deals with other parties, and so on. Luckily, Datablockchain (which you can think of an online store for data) will be able to help them with the solution that we've described before.
Too Much Stress for Data Owners
The current platform of the data market is also problematic and can't serve the needs of data owner quite correctly. If the data owner wants to monetize their data, they have to face many problems which can't be avoided. First thing first, it requires a lot of time and money to create data catalog and also collateral to monetize and identify the right organization or marketplace that can reach as many potential buyers as possible. Selling their own data directly is certainly not an option because it is way costly. That's why, like it or not, they have to rely on other parties.
Determining integrity and accountability of other parties is also hard as hell. It is understandable that data owners want their data to be properly stored, managed and monetized, however, there is no guarantee as most of the time, those activities happen behind the back and there are no available options to track or know about those activities in real time. Because of that, they have to 'trust' the other parties. It's not a problem if they're trustable, but imagine if they're playing behind your back and selling your data to malicious parties and it compromised your privacy, who knows?
Facebook recent cases of allegedly selling their user data is probably one of the most example about data issue. Source: Surfeasy
The security of the data storage environment also comes into question. Let's say that those data brokers/intermediary parties are trustable, but how secure can they store your data? Data owners always wanted their data to be stored securely, that's why cracking/data theft is a problem that needs to be avoided. Such cases can make data owners suffer from losing their data or possibly getting other negative consequences, for example being blackmailed or incorrectly identified as a perpetrator of a crime scene (it depends on their data that was stolen).
A lack of transparency of revenue model also become a problem for data owners, as they can't know directly how much money they'll get when they sell this or that amount of data. This lack of transparency can be one factor in why it is hard for data owners to trust other parties. However, selling their data on their own is also troublesome. It's always a choice between compromising your privacy, data or gaining fewer profits and using too much money on selling your own data.
How to solve all of those problems. It's very simple, actually. What we need is a platform with the ability to help data owners create the datasets or data index, so that they can make the data catalog quite fast. The platform will also have the ability to help data buyer or sellers determine the quality of the data, and also providing transparency for every transactions or deal that happens between each party. Data owners can choose to store their own data on their own device if they don't trust the platform, but their data index will be available to the platform, therefore creating a safe environment to prevent data loss. But, when data owners choose to store their own data on the platform, it should be secured with high standard. And last but not least, the revenue model should be transparent, and data owners should be able to see it or track it directly. Which is what Datablockchain provide to us.
Bottom Line
Datablockchain can be imagined as the online store for big data market. However, this is just not an ordinary store. It has the potential to solve key issues of data owners, data buyers, brokers or every party being involved in the data market. All of those problems that we mentioned above, is possible to be solved all in one go by Datablockchain. Let's see how well this played out.
Don't forget to read some important resources about Datablockchain below:
Datablockchain Website: https://datablockchain.io
Datablockchain Alpha: https://www.dbc.io/
Datablockchain Announcement Thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3361166.0
Datablockchain Bounty Thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5026029.0
Disclaimer
This article is not a financial recommendation. The author, Datablockchain and other parties mentioned in this article is a separate entity. The author writes this article based on his own understanding of Datablockchain. Readers should read the original document of Datablockchain by themselves. The author shouldn't be responsible for any actions taken by the readers, including but not limited to: joining the Datablockchain bounty program, participate in the Datablockchain token sale, and etc.