[edhallen]

I think you make a great point here about the confusion that often gets put out there between data and analysis - a confusion which I'd say is implicit in the term big data as well (and hence I ran with - caveat, I'm the author).

As far as the problem with the term "intelligent data" - I think what you say is exactly true if you do data analysis one time; however, the issue is that for those of us running startups, we find ourselves doing analysis over and over - so intelligently selecting data (in a way that takes us less time together and leads to the same decisions) is a huge win. Read intelligent data as being data + intelligence - not a new type of data.

Likewise, the problem with asserting that more data is always better ignores how most companies are making decisions. At the end of the day, our analysis is completely meaningless without a new action. So a better analysis that doesn't get implemented is worth far less (nothing) than an analysis that gets implemented successfully and drives results.

[washedup]

Good point. There is a cost/benefit balancing for attaining more data which may turn out to be useless. However, technology is increasingly pushing us in a direction that allows us to capture more data at a cheaper cost.