data marketplace (data market)
A data marketplace or data market is an online store where people can buy data.
Data marketplaces typically offer various types of data for different markets and from different sources. Common types of data sold include business intelligence, advertising, demographics, personal information, research and market data. Data types can be mixed and structured in a variety of ways. Data vendors may offer data in specific formats for individual clients.
Data sold in these marketplaces is used by businesses of all kinds, government, business and market intelligence agencies and many types of analysts. Data marketplaces have proliferated with the growth of big data, as the amount of data collected by governments, businesses, websites and services has increased and all that data has become increasingly recognized as an asset. Data marketplaces are often integrated with cloud services.
According to Edd Dumbill, an analyst for O’Reilly Radar, the history of data markets goes back to the mid-1800s, when Paul Reuter, founder of Reuters news media, began making stock exchange prices available between Paris and London.
Examples of data markets include Microsoft's Azure Data Market, Salesforce.com's data.com, InfoChimps.com and DataMarket.com.
See an introduction to the Azure Data Market: