By the end of 2017, Yelp had amassed more than 140 million reviews of local businesses. While the company’s mission focuses on helping people find local businesses more easily, this wealth of data has the potential to serve other purposes. For instance, Yelp data might help restaurants understand which markets they should consider entering, or whether to add a bar. It can help real estate investors understand where gentrification might occur. And it might help private equity firms with an interest in coffee decide whether to invest in Philz or Blue Bottle.
How Companies Can Use the Data They Collect to Further the Public Good
The potential value of the large data sets being amassed by private companies raises new opportunities and challenges for managers making strategic data decisions. While there are plenty of well-publicized examples of data repurposing gone wrong, it would be a shame for companies to decide that the only option is to hoard their data. Before you decide that your data can’t be put to a new use, consider how it might help augment public data sources. For example, recent research explored the potential for Yelp data to measure local economic change and augment the official data, often from the U.S. census. This speaks to the broader potential for data from online platforms to improve our understanding of all of America. Repurposing data can also have benefits for a company far beyond the warm glow of having done some good. As researchers work with the data, new insights about their data and platform design choices may surface. As policy makers rely on the insights from the data, new relationships can form and facilitate valuable collaborations. Public-facing data efforts can also increase awareness of a company’s brand — allowing companies to do well by doing good.