The official blog for Numerous. Life's most important numbers available at a glance.
Personal Big Data Goes Mainstream
Charlie Wood
08 August 2014
John and I started Numerous because we believe we’re entering an era of “personal big data”, that is, data from tons of different sources—fitness, health, finance, environment, connected home, connected things, connected everything—and that existing channels don’t fit. So we’re creating a new one: Numerous.
So it was very cool to read an article in Newsweek identifying exactly this trend. According to author Kevin Maney, “We’re entering an age of personal big data, and its impact on our lives will surpass that of the Internet.”
Kevin’s piece matches exactly what we’re seeing with Numerous. Our users are tracking a bewildering variety of data, things we would have never predicted. (One user tracks the number of wind gusts over 30 mph in the last 30 minutes within 5 miles of his house and gets a notification when the number goes over 2, which indicates strong likelihood of fires fueled by the Santa Ana winds. Personal big data indeed.)
We’re hard at work building out a platform so our users can not only follow and share their own numbers but create and share their own types of numbers, or “channels”. (Imagine a Numerous user creating a “Currency Exchange Rate” channel so another user could create and share a USD-to-GBP number just by selecting those two currencies. Soon.)
We agree wholeheartedly with Kevin that we’re at the beginning of something big. And we’re glad that you’re here with us.
