Influx

Tom Foremski over at Silicon Valley Watcher has an interesting account of where the AOL data fallout is leading.

As well as the uproar, the concern, the promises from AOL’s rival Google, that this would never happen to them, the AOL data is out and lots of people are playing with it.

Foremski’s point is that even this limited data is a rich insight into the human condition, richer than some of the works of the best authors and certainly more powerful than any conventional consumer research.

His conclusion is that AOL’s data is just the tip of the iceberg and that Google has way more interesting stuff, that if they chose to use, could make them even more frighteningly powerful than they already area.

“Google has the means to gain an incredible insight into the human condition. Can it keep the data safe from being released into the wild? Maybe. .. If it can keep the data from others, it can mine that database to its advantage–an extremely powerful, competitive advantage.”

Is Google the “oracle” of the human condition?