Yes, in theory, that's one way big data could work. Or perhaps if they'd known more about the market, they wouldn't have made that particular product line. But it's not only in business that big data is useful. It has all kinds of implications. Take the area of health and disease, and one of the big health epidemics of recent times, bird flu. It would have affected many more people if the health authorities hadn't spotted certain trends in the way it was spreading. Even an illness as common as flu can show up quickly because people do online searches for flu medicines. According to one report, a flu epidemic in the USA was predicted ten days before it reached its peak. If the online searches hadn't been tracked, this prediction wouldn't have been possible. There's an interesting example in Australia. Cycling is becoming more and more popular there, and a lot of cyclists use an app to track all of their journeys. This data provides a useful map of accident blackspots — places where the most accidents happen — so you can change your route if you want to and avoid those spots. It works because so many cyclists downloaded the app. If they hadn't, they wouldn't be able to use the information.