Mining Data from the World for Big Profits

Bradley Hope covers the emerging business model of companies that scrape data from the physical world with technology like social media and satellite imagery to then sell to a needy market. Hope focuses on Orbital Insight, Inc, a company that produces information about the construction industry in China—by scanning satellite images of Chinese cities for evidence of changes to the shadows cast by building stock.

According to Hope, "[other] recent startups aim to use social media, crowdsourcing and other largely unexplored data sets to provide traders with breaking news and macroeconomic indicators." Although the article is careful to describe the businesses as experimental, it also hints at the vast profit potential of pulling data on the physical conditions of cities.

The Wall Street Journal's coverage includes a group of infographics by Tynan DeBold, Bradley Hope and Joe Shoulak that exhibit how Orbital's technology works.