Product, Service & Design Innovation
Datacoup Lets Users Unlock the Value of Their Personal Data for Cash, Insights

Datacoup, “The World’s First Personal Data Marketplace,” launched Thursday, providing a platform for individuals to aggregate, analyze and sell their own personal data. After a successful beta period with over 1,200 active users testing new site features and receiving money for their data, the service is primed to welcome 10,000+ individuals on its waiting list, as well as the general public, to its platform.

“We’re really excited to get the new site launched,” says Matt Hogan, Datacoup CEO and co-founder. “We’ve added a ton of new features that show users why their data is valuable. While we are the only company of our kind that pays people for their data and a lot of the focus around this space has been transactional, the bigger picture for our platform is to create a new paradigm of control for individuals that provides them greater access and awareness regarding their personal information.”

"It's been great working with Matt and Datacoup as they're helping move the needle in regards to creating the Personal Data Ecosystem, said John Havens, Datacoup collaborator and author of Hacking H(app)iness. “Their vision is not so much that people can simply sell their data, but that they learn the value of their information while they're also getting financial benefits from it. Today, opaque and third-party data brokers and other actors get all the value of our data. Datacoup is doing much more than simply paying people X amount of money for their personal information — they're helping people begin to see how deeply it reflects their actions, behaviors and lives."

To highlight the launch, the company has created a video thought leadership series, examining the current state of the Personal Data ecosystem and how it could look by 2016, called PD16. Featuring perspectives from Coca-Cola, HP, the World Economic Forum and more, interviewees have provided utopian and dystopian scenarios that could come to pass in two years based on whether or not individuals control their own personal data.

“We’re really focused on educating people on why their data is so important,” Hogan says about the series. “The next two years are going to be pivotal in regards to helping people reclaim and take ownership of their personal data.”

How Datacoup Works

Today, the entire Internet Advertising industry is predicated on mining and selling consumer data. Currently, consumers get no discernible benefit, and have no control over their data. Datacoup lets users “Unlock The Value of Their Data” by helping them Aggregate, Understand, and Transact with their personal information:

1. Aggregate: Datacoup sits on top of financial and social APIs, and will soon be adding Quantified Self and other APIs. By combining these data sets, Datacoup helps users maximize value and find correlations and insights from their personal information that they currently can’t access.
2. Understand: Datacoup lets users see granular, attribute-level information to fully understand their data. Additional infographics and trendspotting insights are also regularly updated so users can quantify and analyze themselves.
3. Transact: Users see their status in the market, how much they have earned and to whom they’ve sold their data plus additional metrics to understand how the process of selling data works.

In a recent webinar, Hogan and Havens, along with Vision Critical’s Nick Stein, illustrated the growing need for brands and organizations to elevate individuals from consumers to collaborators, and create experiences, platforms and relationships with this in mind.