Airbnb Is a Data Company — and an Event Company
How lovely to pick up an email from a longtime colleague the other day.
Anthea,
Headlines like this remind me of how lucky we are to have careers that have allowed us to swim in the warm waters of content creation. Hope you are well.
And with it, he sent this link.
This leader worked in a traditional marketing data business, then went to eBay. One thing he looked into while at eBay was monetizing the pricing data they sat on (way ahead of his time — way to go!). Then, he went off into the land of software. He, like me, and most of the Outsell team are rare birds, bilingual in both data, information, media and publishing (say that five times) and software and hardware technology. One is content. One is technology. Today, they are all one, but for most of our lifetimes, they were not. Few who come from information roots or tech roots really get the other’s world.
So, how fun to get that link pointing to Airbnb. Airbnb a data company?
Yes, today everyone is a data company. I loved my colleague’s metaphor about warm water because at Outsell, for years, we’ve been talking about the “pipes” and the “water.” The pipes are technology. Whether it’s books, CD-ROMs, DVDs, TVs, computers, iPhones, or websites, they are the conduits through which content flows. Even application software, most often about infrastructure, middleware, or application layers, enabled the handling of content, but didn’t come with content. Content, data, and information always represented the water that flowed through the pipes. Even today, our cars are conduits. BMW and Audi bought mapping technology as a competitive differentiator. Intel paid $15 billion for the prospect of capturing data from driverless cars. What is a Tesla if not a computer on wheels? The computer runs on content, not just fuel — in this case electricity.
In a post-convergence world, enter the cognitive world, enter a world where everyone is running around making data, harnessing data, and thinking about their data exhaust. Now, every company is a data company. The technology gangs have woken up to the importance of data. It started with analytics coming off digital offerings, but now everything we do is producing data and good, quality data matters. Whether it’s IoT or our cars, everything is producing data exhaust, and that exhaust can be monetized and used.
At Outsell we refer to several key mechanisms for monetizing data. Airbnb is focused on the one called “monetizing customers.” Consider this from the article: “Airbnb is developing into a global data company with the ability to leverage individual travel behavior data for millions of travel consumers. Using companies like Amazon, Netflix, and Spotify as an example, Conley said, ‘The more you use their products, the more the companies know you… and can personalize the way they talk to you.’”
Think about it. Like Foursquare, Airbnb commercialized the data itself (another way to monetize data). There are many ways to use data that can help predict patterns and help inform our decisions, including data on food consumption, rental car volume, travel, or others. What if, as this article says, Airbnb travels right into the event space? Another disruption in the making. Suddenly room blocks look old-fashioned. Indeed, everyone is a data company, especially Amazon, Netflix, Spotify, Uber, Airbnb, and LinkedIn.
Today, most companies we see monetizing data are doing so inside their own business, using it to mitigate their risk or monetize customers (read save money or make money). Leading companies like eBay are using it for talent management. Few are directly monetizing it, and that is a whole new kettle of fish and the markets are not as big as people think they are. Although, there will be opportunity, and when you take Airbnb’s mix of data and extend into events, it puts a whole new meaning on the word convergence.
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