from inc. magazine: in start-up land, the hot buzzword is big data–those massive data sets that can’t be handled with traditional database tools. the promise is that businesses can capture, curate, and synthesize big data to enable personalization in e-commerce, smarter business decisions, and greater efficiency.
in the world of local businesses, we’re not talking about big data. instead we’re dealing with small data.

make no mistake, small does not mean insignificant. think of it this way: if we leveraged data in local the same way large e-commerce companies do, we could have a greater impact on commerce than big data, since more that 90 percent of retail transactions still occur offline in local businesses. but most of us don’t. the reality is that most local businesses haven’t figured out how to capture or use this data to grow profits. so how do we solve the “data divide” for local businesses?

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