On Thursday, Elio Motors, Inc. (OTCQX: ELIO) announced the completion of the fourth and final stage of engineering for its highly-anticipated E-Series vehicles, including the finalized chassis design. This milestone is significant in Elio’s progress toward the commercial launch of its three-wheeled vehicle, as it opens the door for real-world vehicle validation and ride dynamics testing and calibration. Moving forward, the company will depend on a seasoned, eight-person build team to hand craft vehicles from its newly-established Pilot Operations Center in Livonia, Michigan, in order to complete a variety of aerodynamic, safety and durability tests ahead of the start of commercial production.

“Once our E-Series vehicles emerge from the pilot build, the Chassis team will conduct ride and handling development tuning to refine the vehicle’s driving characteristics prior to commercial production,” Jeff Johnston, vice president of engineering for Elio, stated in yesterday’s news release.

The design of Elio’s E-Series includes a number of innovative features meant to reduce noise and vibration while increasing the comfort of the ride for both drivers and passengers. In particular, Johnston highlights the vehicle’s independent suspension system, which consists of unequal upper and lower control arms incorporating a coil-over shock absorber that’s reminiscent of the suspension systems used in some of the world’s leading performance vehicles. This suspension allows Elio to maintain a lower profile for improved aerodynamics and lighter weight.

“This achievement, which is the final step in our engineering process for the E-Series of vehicles, further validates the flexibility and agility of our Elio Motors-supplier product development process,” Paul Elio, founder and chief executive officer of Elio Motors, stated in yesterday’s news release. “Roush, which joined the team in January, has done a tremendous job on the design of the chassis and suspension, as well as managing the overall engineering process working at what seems like lightning speed.”

In recent months, Elio has been aggressive in pushing toward production of the E-Series. In January, the company launched its first national advertising campaign to increase awareness and generate additional vehicle reservations. To date, Elio has recorded more than 52,400 reservations for its E-Series, capitalizing on a host of marketable features such as record fuel economy of 84 miles per gallon and a targeted base price of just $6,800.

These efforts have had a noticeable impact on the company’s financial position. During a busy first quarter of 2016, Elio successfully raised nearly $17 million in a Regulation A+ stock sale on the StartEngine Crowdfunding platform. Regulation A+, a ruling stemming from the 2012 Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act, allows businesses to raise up to $50 million in funding from both accredited and non-accredited investors. With this move, Elio became the first U.S.-based organization in history to raise capital using Regulation A+, as well as the first to have its shares publicly traded when it listed on the OTCQX Best Market back in February.

For more information, visit www.eliomotors.com

In October 2015, the highly respected Pew Research Center (PRC) published ‘Social Media Usage: 2005 – 2015’ (http://dtn.fm/C2jEp), which showed that the boundary between our online and offline lives is disappearing. One way in which this development is manifesting itself is in the proliferation of social media sites. The number of online platforms that offer social interaction is large and growing. Wikipedia’s ‘List of Social Networking Sites’ (http://dtn.fm/9b8OX) lists over two hundred. The usual suspects, Facebook (1,280,000,000), Flickr (32,000,000), Instagram (300,000,000), LinkedIn (200,000,000), Pinterest (176,000,000), Tumblr (226,950,000), and Twitter (645,750,000) are there. So are Academia.edu (18,000,000) for academics and researchers, aSmallWorld (550,000) for ‘European jet set and social elite world-wide’, DeviantArt (26,000,000) for art lovers, English, baby! (1,600,000) for English as a second language, and Vampirefreaks.com (1,931,049), which seems to be for vampires and freaks. Registered user statistics are enclosed in parentheses.

The PRC report found that the number of adult users of social networking sites has climbed from 7 percent in 2005 to 65 percent in 2015. The report also stated ‘over the past decade, it has consistently been the case that those in higher-income households were more likely to use social media. More than half (56%) of those living in the lowest-income households now use social media, though growth has leveled off in the past few years. Turning to educational attainment, a similar pattern is observed. Those with at least some college experience have been consistently more likely than those with a high school degree or less to use social media over the past decade.’

In 2005, the PRC found that 4 percent of those living in households earning less than $30,000 used social media, compared with 12 percent of those living in households earning $75,000 or more. In 2015, 78 percent of those living in the highest-income households used social media, compared with 56% of those in the lowest-income households – a 22-point difference.

Use of social media in 2005 was 4 percent for those with a high school diploma or less schooling, 8 percent for those with some college and 12 percent for college graduates. The comparable figures for 2015 were 54 percent for those with a high school diploma or less, 70 percent for those with some college and 76 percent for those with college or graduate degrees.

An earlier PRC survey titled ‘Frequency of Social Media Use’ (http://dtn.fm/gi6EP) found that 80 percent of internet users have a social media account and that ‘more than half of internet users (52%) use two or more of the social media sites measured (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn).’

The ‘mix’ of social media use is interesting. If Facebook can be used as ‘marker’ because of its widespread acceptance, it appears that about one-third of Facebook users will use another of the most popular sites: Twitter 29%, Instagram 34%, Pinterest 34%, and LinkedIn 33%. Instagram users were most likely to also have Facebook accounts (91%); LinkedIn users were the least likely (86%). Four percent of internet users use five or more social media sites. That number is likely to grow in the coming years as awareness of the range of platforms and their merits (and demerits) grows.

Agora Holdings, Inc. (OTC: AGHI), parent company of Geegle Media, is poised to capitalize on this burgeoning growth of social media activity. Earlier this year, the company launched FRAME, an organization tool for the management of social media and subscription-based accounts. FRAME is designed to meet the needs of consumers who use multiple social media websites and platforms on a daily basis by providing a dashboard from which they are all accessible.

At its launch, CEO Dan Terziev had this to say:

“Imagine FRAME as a single door that leads to many rooms. Each room represents a website that we log into several times each day. Rather than signing in several times, logging once into FRAME is sufficient to bring together all your social media accounts, making a far more organized and engaging social media experience.”

Agora Holdings will offer free access to FRAME for non-commercial users in a strategy that is expected to add users quickly. The company is already incorporating functionality with the main social media platforms.

For more information, visit www.agoraholdingsinc.com

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At the heart of Oakridge Global Energy Solutions, Inc.’s (OTCQB: OGES) operations lies a deep commitment to innovation. Since its establishment, the company has been innovating to achieve commercial success, and, over the course of three decades, it has come to lead the innovation, development, manufacturing and marketing of disruptive energy storage technology (primarily lithium-ion batteries) for civilian, medical and military uses.

Oakridge is an integrated energy storage solutions company that employs state-of-the-art technology in designing, developing and manufacturing high-quality cells, batteries, and energy storage systems. The company is a leading supplier and manufacturer of lithium-ion batteries, and a dedication to research and development has led it to create some of the world’s longest-lasting rechargeable power sources, including a battery system that holds its charge up to three times longer than its foreign-manufactured equivalents.

To become a leader around the globe, Oakridge has widened its scope. At the end of 2015, the company transitioned from being a primarily research and development-focused company to being a fully-developed battery manufacturing company. The company embraced the vision, capability and technology it needed to implement its expansion strategies. Then, it broadened its presence and relationships in the battery business significantly. Finally, it secured a much higher quality of equipment and raw materials to build its groundbreaking battery systems while still offering reliability and affordability to its customers.

In the first quarter of 2016, Oakridge began operating the only lithium-ion battery manufacturing facility in the United States, a move that gives it even more control over the quality of its energy storage systems. Backed by an investment of over $40 million into research and product development since 2013, the 70,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Palm Bay, Florida, went into full commercial production immediately.

The company also began fulfilling commercial orders. Oakridge has been shipping its cutting-edge lithium-ion batteries to manufacturers of unmanned maritime vehicles, the golf cart and motorcycle markets and other custom and semi-custom markets. In a significant move and for the first time, the company has been operating a regular, indefinite commercial production schedule to fulfill its existing pipeline of orders, which is currently valued at approximately $24 million.

The U.S. market for lithium-ion batteries represents over 35% of worldwide demand, and, as the sole domestic manufacturer of these batteries, Oakridge is in an enviable position and exclusively capable of leveraging that position. The company’s projected revenues for the first quarter of the year (its first revenue-producing quarter ever) are thus strong and expected to exceed $250,000.

For more information, visit www.oakridgeglobalenergy.com

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With the GMIC (Global Mobile Internet Conference) 2016 going down this week in Beijing and O2O (online-to-offline) having been such a conference-defining subject last year, there is a great deal of buzz again this year on the subject, especially with the Chinese equivalent of ecommerce giant Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), known as Alibaba (NYSE: BABA), having confirmed its $1.25 billion investment in the rapidly growing food delivery service Ele.me early last week. This is a big move by the Chinese ecommerce titan to grow its footprint in an (increasingly vital for retailers) O2O market that currently dominates much of the retail horizon in China and was valued late last year by HSBC at around $150 billion-plus on a mere four percent internet penetration, even as the online segment of this market jumped 80 percent YOY to around a third of that figure in the first half of last year alone.

Seen by many analysts as a counter play to Alibaba rival Tencent’s (OTC: TCTZF) sizable foothold in what is the merged result of China’s top two “local deals” outfits, Dianping-Meituan, which Alibaba divested its $900 million stake in – the Ele.me deal could be BABA’s ticket to locking down the brick and mortar side of the equation via O2O. Food delivery to residences is a model that has been a long time coming, but revolutionary O2O platforms that let traditional retailers with a physical location tap into the burgeoning internet/mobile traffic space around them could be just the rocket engines needed for the model to finally reach escape velocity. O2O could provide the kind of tight customer engagement needed to seal the deal and BABA is banking on localization to keep the costs down. At any rate, Alibaba is likely going for a sole source play here, one that could see the company end up owning startup Ele.me, and so it makes sense to look at the broader O2O space given such auspicious events/timing.

Customer engagement is the core of the entire O2O puzzle, but it’s a tricky animal and it requires the right mix of features for the consumer and the retailer alike, if one is to get the implementation truly humming. That’s why a company like Moxian, Inc. (OTCQB: MOXC) is so interesting in this space right now, where the majority of the players are conventional retail and online services like Alibaba, who are branching out. As a startup with the proprietary apps, platform/server access methodologies and virtual currencies needed to make it all happen, which cut its teeth and put the entire framework through its paces in Asian markets, Moxian is in the pole position when it comes to exploiting the ongoing Chinese O2O surge. With a strategy to geographically target prime metropolitan areas and leverage boots on the ground sales forces in Beijing, Guangzhou and Shanghai, Moxian’s story is an extremely compelling one.

Without the trappings of the other sector players, who are encumbered by legacy service architectures, Moxian is able to focus on simply growing the number of merchants in its platform’s network, ensuring that its Moxian+ User App and Moxian+ Business App (for Android and iPhone) remain feature-rich, and that the kind of high-value big data needed for premium business analytics is generated. By providing consumers with a robust social networking toolset that allows them to easily search for things like friends, interest groups, profiles and topics, as well as chat/share within social circles, all via a framework that also allows them to find nearby merchants using geo-location and earn spendable virtual currency (MO-Coin and MO-Points) or other rewards through gamified content, Moxian is able to also offer brick and mortar retailers ready-made access to the largest mobile-using population on the planet.

With nearly a mobile phone for every person in China (around 95 percent market penetration as of 2015), retailers have to be crazy not to tap into the virtual channel and drive traffic to their stores. The good news is that Moxian has made it all too easy, with a unique SCRM (Social Customer Relationship Management) toolkit available via the business app that covers everything from automated data capture-driven analytics and user-base profiling to loyalty/customer retention program development and advertising. Customer engagement tools like notification pushes, online marketing efforts and even online payments round out the package and create a closed-loop O2O ecosystem based on logistical realities and social interactions. The company even provides consulting services to retailers who are new to dealing with the ecommerce and social media ends of the spectrum, and who want to get it right.

With the rise in China of novel online entities such as the hybridized Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) and Twitter (NYSE: TWTR)-like microblog social network, Sina Weibo, owned by Sina Corp. (NASDAQ: SINA), which is trouncing majors like Baidu (NASDAQ: BIDU) and Tencent at around 86 percent microblogging market share (based on the highly correlative metric of browsing time), it is very clear that Chinese social media is every bit the ever-changing and unstoppable freight train that it is in the U.S. and Europe. Understanding how important O2O will continue to be for brick and mortar, which still constitutes the lion’s share of all retail transactions, is essential for investors who want to ride the wave.

Moxian is in a good position here to exploit the underlying trend with its proprietary technologies, an expertly crafted approach to the space driven by field-based leg work, and the potential to set itself up on multiple revenue sources (merchant fees, advertising, consulting, virtual currency sales, etc.). Investors should keep an eye on the company for mounting merchant subscriptions as it rolls out its sales footprint throughout this year. O2O services like those made available through group-buying sites like Groupon (NASDAQ: GRPN) and other platforms that offer tangible, real-world deals on products, or events like concerts, movies and restaurants, are gaining favor every year with consumers – even as social media becomes a more and more prominent part of our lives.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.Moxian.com

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Little did Dorsa and Joey Parsi know, but their idea of creating a kid-friendly restaurant that even parents could enjoy would become a successful business venture right from the beginning. Seeing a need for a restaurant that could deliver both physical fun and nutritious food for the whole family, the Parsi’s opened their own in February 2008 in Brentwood, California. Not long after, Giggles N’ Hugs, Inc. (OTCQB: GIGL) saw quick success followed by an offer from Westfield Corp. (OTC: WEFIF), a major mall developer, for its own place in Westfield Century City Mall. Westfield offered to pay 60% of construction costs, which led to the restaurant’s completion in 2010. Since then, Giggles N’ Hugs has expanded to three successful locations in California malls and is looking to grow throughout the nation. Catering to such a niche demographic might seem like an unfruitful idea, but a company that focuses its efforts on a specific, yet significant market can be more successful than larger companies.

One of the first advantages Giggles N’ Hugs has that adds to its success comes from knowing its customers. The company knows what the customer wants and needs to build a strong relationship. The Parsi’s themselves understand the restaurant woes that come from taking a young child out and seek to eliminate the frustration and instead add fun. Giggles N’ Hugs also has a marketing advantage over larger companies, because it knows where and how to advertise to its niche market. Just by knowing its customers on a more intimate level and offering something new, Giggles N’ Hugs gains an edge over its competitors.

Similarly, Giggles N’ Hugs, along with its staff, delivers top-notch customer service to families who will keep coming back. Because the restaurant’s niche market is smaller, every customer counts. By creating a friendly atmosphere with an attentive staff, Giggles N’ Hugs pulls ahead of the rest. Putting parents and their children first establishes a memorable experience which, in turn, markets the brand organically through word of mouth. Plus, Giggles N’ Hugs has the ability to make changes quickly based on client feedback since decision-making isn’t hindered by a large hierarchy.

Dorsa and Joey Parsi can relate to their customers through their own experiences. Giggles N’ Hugs caters to families who want a truly fun, family-friendly restaurant that also provides nutritious foods. Giggles N’ Hugs will continue to expand its one-of-a-kind restaurant concept, which never forces parents to sacrifice on quality food in exchange for a space to play.

Learn more by visiting www.gigglesnhugs.com

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When entrepreneurs look to blaze theirs paths in the rough and tumble world of sole proprietorship, they commonly gravitate toward horizons that show promise of growth, financial-freedom, sustainability and self-gratification. Low start-up costs are intriguing as well. Rarely are there opportunities that offer a unique blend of all these sought-after characteristics, unless one comes across and looks inside Laguna Blends, Inc. (OTC: LAGBF).

Referred to as a network marketing company by its president and chief executive officer, Stuart Gray, Laguna’s sales channel is comprised of retail sales through independent agents, or ‘affiliates’. These individuals or groups use Laguna’s technology resources to help them build, in many cases, global businesses from their own homes, regardless of where they live. A main draw of this model is that Laguna’s technology replaces the high costs associated with travel and traditional hotel conferences and meetings.

With its primary market geographically prevalent in North America, Laguna’s attraction is its focus and expertise with the nutritional health benefits of hemp. The company initially broke into the market with functional beverage products containing hemp and other efficacious ingredients. Laguna’s first product, Caffe, is an instant, hot coffee beverage that is infused with both whey and hemp protein and ready to serve by just adding water. The product offers a robust infusion of protein, containing two grams of the essential nutrient in every serving.

An equally popular product offering, Pro369 is a plant-based, instant hemp protein that is served cold and comes in four tantalizing flavors for the ‘on-the-go’ consumer. Water soluble, Pro369 can be mixed in water, added to nearly any beverage or blended in a shake. Pro369 is also a great source of Omegas 3, 6 and 9 and contains ginseng, as well. Notably, the Canadian Minister of Health recently granted Laguna a product license along with a Natural Product Number (“NPN”) for all four of the Pro369 flavors. They are all listed under the same NPN. With this certification, the company’s products are officially recognized as being a source of protein that helps build and repair body tissues, as well as a source of amino acids, which are involved in muscle protein synthesis.

For more information, visit www.lagunablends.com

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Before the opening bell, Monaker Group, Inc. (OTCQB: MKGI) announced a new partnership with Recruiter.com, an online global recruiting and career services site, to develop a custom travel club solution for its members. When complete, the new service will be available to all of Recruiter.com’s roughly three million members and followers, delivering customized travel and lifestyle offerings including highly discounted travel and vacation packages complete with special benefits such as concierge support, exclusive experiences and premium upgrades.

“We are pleased to be a trusted partner to Recruiter.com and look forward to delivering their members a high quality platform and exceptional customer support,” Bill Kerby, chairman and chief executive officer of Monaker, stated in this morning’s news release. “The partnership gives us another distribution outlet for our growing Alternative Lodging inventory and other travel products within our portfolio. Furthermore, the Recruiter.com Travel Club validates Monaker Group’s unique ability to build innovative products for both work and play.”

In recent weeks, Monaker has placed much of its focus on unlocking specialty lodging inventory through its large-scale travel distribution platform, NextTrip. On Tuesday, the company took a significant stride toward achieving this goal when it announced the integration of its proprietary timeshare booking engine, NextTrip Resorts, into its flagship booking platform. NextTrip Resorts offers a number of unique advantages over existing timeshare booking platforms, including instant booking confirmations on more than 250,000 units. In total, Monaker has approximately one million alternative lodging units under contract, positioning it as one of the largest players in the rapidly growing alternative lodging industry.

According to data from Research and Markets, the global vacation rental market is in a period of significant growth, with current estimates calling for the industry to exceed $169 billion by 2019. Timeshares and alternative lodging are expected to play a key role in this market performance as innovative new platforms, such as NextTrip Resorts, provide owners with the tools needed to offer the approximately 25 percent of timeshare, fractional and condo-hotel unit inventory that currently goes unused to consumers. With an estimated 19 million rooms falling under this category in high-demand vacation destinations around the globe, Monaker’s new platform positions it as a major force in a largely untapped market.

Monaker expects to obtain additional commitments from major hospitality companies and independent operators with national and international networks of resorts in the coming weeks, effectively strengthening the NextTrip platform. When combined with complementary ventures, such as the company’s newly-announced partnership with Recruiter.com, Monaker’s launch and expansion of NextTrip have it well-positioned to achieve considerable growth moving forward.

For more information, visit www.monakergroup.com

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When one of the expert nutritionists from Content Checked Holdings, Inc. (OTCQB: CNCK) was featured last month in an article on heavily-trafficked foodie site The Daily Meal, which is geared toward everyone from pro cooks and industry insiders to savvy diners, the spot showcased exactly the kind of actionable intelligence the company’s apps were designed to provide. The insights provided by Content Checked’s Registered Dietitian, Tory Tedrow, CNSC, regarding the importance of foods like lentils in a diet as a key source of iron (http://dtn.fm/qVh0j) were on target for this article and indicative of CNCK’s expertise.

Tedrow explained how iron deficiency anemia is the natural result when people don’t have enough foods containing iron in their diets and that fatigue, weakness, and shortness of breath are some of the common symptoms. Offering solutions for readers, such as the helpful tip that combining iron-rich foods with others that contain high levels of vitamin C (such as oranges) will help maximize iron uptake by the body, is another prime example of insight that CNCK provides its users through its apps.

Such important dietary information is precisely the kind of nutritionist-driven intelligence that users can get access to with the swipe of a finger using the company’s family of mobile apps. The apps were built to provide people who have specific dietary restrictions with a quick and simple answer to whether or not a product is suitable for their dietary needs. The company’s three apps – including ContentChecked for food allergies, SugarChecked for added sugars and MigraineChecked for migraine triggers – allow users to quickly scan a product’s barcode with their smartphones and gain access to a rich database of nutritional information.

The ability to provide feedback on over 70% (and growing) of all food products in the U.S. with the swipe of a finger is a powerful weapon in the fight against food related issues like allergies and diabetes. By using Content Checked’s apps routinely, end users gain healthy insights along the way. Users become educated over time by the apps, which steer them clear of bad decisions and can, therefore, also help to steer them in the right direction, nutritionally speaking.

An app like SugarChecked is a prime example of the type of tool the CDC’s Division of Diabetes Translation was referring to when it recommended to its email user base that diabetics should utilize the growing number of apps designed to do everything from track blood sugar levels to help more closely define eating habits.

For more information, visit www.contentchecked.com

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Earlier today, Immune Therapeutics, Inc. (OTCQB: IMUN) announced that Nigeria’s National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has approved the company’s patented Lodonal™ as an over-the-counter, non-toxic adjunct therapy in the treatment of HIV/AIDS. With this approval, IMUN’s distribution partners, AHAR Pharma and GB Pharma Holdings, will now be able to launch nationwide marketing and sales programs for the breakthrough immunotherapy, creating a new revenue stream for IMUN and contributing to health security in Nigeria.

“Receiving approval of our affordable non-toxic immunodeficiency treatment Lodonal is a significant company milestone,” Noreen Griffin, chief executive officer of IMUN, stated in this morning’s news release. “Supported by a new and growing body of clinical research, we expect Lodonal will be increasingly proven as an effective treatment for patients suffering from a comprised immune system and other autoimmune conditions as it prepares for commercialization.”

The NAFDAC approval comes as a result of the successful completion of a 90-day bridging study conducted by AHAR Pharma at the State Specialist Hospital in Nigeria. The results of the Nigerian study were consistent with IMUN’s previous clinical trials of Lodonal, yielding an average increase of 44 percent in CD4 count in the treatment group, as compared to an increase of just 11 percent in the control group. Higher CD4 counts have been linked to increased ability to fight HIV and other infections. According to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (http://dtn.fm/QU4dS), CD4 count is the ‘most important laboratory indicator of how well [the] immune system is working and the strongest predictor of HIV progression’.

The market potential of Lodonal in Nigeria, which is Africa’s leading economy with more than 175 million people, is immense. Among its many benefits, Lodonal is cost-effective and easy to administer, requiring just a single daily oral dose. In addition to affordably improving the quality of life of patients, the therapy also offers a compelling economic benefit to national health care systems, as it is designed to produce a significant reduction in opportunistic infections.

The path of destruction created by the HIV/AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa is staggering. According to AVERT (http://dtn.fm/hPF5o), a global provider of HIV/AIDS education, roughly 24.7 million people in the sub-Saharan region were living with HIV in 2013. Among those individuals, just 39 percent of adults were on antiretroviral treatments. When combined with the knowledge that an estimated 75 percent of adults in the region with HIV who are currently accessing antiretroviral treatments have not yet achieved viral suppression, the critical need for IMUN’s innovative adjunct therapy is clearly demonstrated.

“While we finalize the registration process… we will focus on distribution throughout Nigeria,” continued Griffin. “Simultaneously we will be working to leverage the successful clinical trial results and NAFDAC approval to expedite the approval and distribution into the many other African nations that have been devastated by HIV/AIDS for the past 17 years.”

Learn more by visiting www.immunetherapeutics.com

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According to a recent report from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) titled ‘The Hyperconnected Economy: How the growing Interconnectedness of Society is changing the Landscape for Business’ (http://dtn.fm/W4z9k), ‘more than a technological trend, hyperconnectivity is a cultural condition to which businesses have no choice but to adapt.’ The report goes on to explain that ‘hyperconnectivity is a term that describes a defining feature of contemporary society. Thanks to the Internet, mobile technology and soon the Internet of things, people, places, organizations and objects are linked together like never before.’ In other words, developments in technology have shrunk the world. However, while the technology has drawn us closer, it has also multiplied the complexity of our lives. The same applies to business. As the EIU report hints, the increased connectivity presents new challenges and opportunities for businesses. The launch of Alternet Systems, Inc.’s (OTC: ALYI) Data Analytics Division in January 2016 is, thus, timely, as it offers businesses the tools to navigate the new landscape of this virtual world.

The seminal event of this brave new virtual world was, of course, the introduction of packet switching technology. It was used at first in the U.S. Department of Defense’s ARPANET and is now widely employed in the super network known as the internet. Now the internet has over one billion websites, and sites are added at the rate of two or three every second. Now also, according to a press release (http://dtn.fm/d9thU) issued by the International Telecommunications Union, an agency of the United Nations (UN), around 3.2 billion people globally are using the internet. ‘Between 2000 and 2015, Internet penetration has increased almost seven-fold from 6.5 to 43 per cent of the global population’ and ‘the proportion of households with Internet access at home advanced from 18 per cent in 2005 to 46 per cent in 2015.’ It’s not just people, of course. Much of the internet is automated with computers ‘speaking’ to computers and other ‘smart’ devices in the internet of things (IoT).

Many of the largest companies in the world are already grappling with ways to tackle this enormous amorphous mass of data, referred to as ‘big data’. Big data is big and growing. The term ‘googol’ may have connotations of gargantuan but the size of the Google index pales in comparison to the petabytes of data still waiting to be cataloged. One petabyte equals 2⁵⁰ bytes. It has been reported in ‘How Much of the Internet is Hidden’ (http://dtn.fm/7PqmI) that ‘Eric Schmidt, Google’s former CEO, estimated that it (the internet) consists of roughly five million terabytes of data. That’s over five trillion megabytes. Google’s web search has indexed about 200 terabytes of this data. That’s a lot of data, but that comprises only 0.004 percent of the whole thing.’ The term big data is no exaggeration.

Since the volume of data available is so immense, it is very likely that organizations will require specialized third-parties, like Alternet Systems, to not only provide the analytics tools but also the strategies needed to take advantage of the internet’s hidden treasures. Size is not the only defining critical factor of big data, which is structured in a variety of formats from a diversity of sources: ecommerce transactions, financial transactions, social media interactions, web logs, etc.

The EIU report continues with the observation that ‘one of the important outcomes of hyper-connectivity for business is the creation of new fields of competition. Data are being developed within companies, from public sources, by third-party vendors that provide multiple linkages on products, pricing, branding and sales. From proactive pricing to tracking the branding of competitors’ products, hyper-connected data present a new basis for competition.’

With an International Data Corporation (IDC) forecast that the ‘big data technology and services market will grow at 26.4% compound annual growth rate to $41.5 billion through 2018’, Alternet Systems aims to be, in the coming months, one of those third-party vendors.

For more information, visit www.alternetsystems.com

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