On September 10th, "Connected" magazine published an article saying that at present, application developers need to use the APIs of companies such as Google and Foursquare to obtain location data. But using those APIs can also create conflicts of interest, and developers who compete with providers are less likely to get the data they want. Factual, founded by the father of AdSense, wants to solve this problem and help developers use location data to make applications smarter, more in line with people's needs, and to predict people's needs in advance.

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Gil Elbaz was obsessed with data from an early age. He would think about the question "Where is the coldest place in the world?" His parents had to come up with a thick book for him to find the answer. "One of the most annoying things about books is that you can't organize information," Elbaz said. "So, the only way to know the coldest place is to rummag all in a 100-page book. Temperature data."

Because of this, he likes spreadsheets very much, and the rows and columns of the tables are very neat and easy to organize. He still remembers sitting in front of an early Apple computer and collecting and organizing information on various topics. “I was just thinking about it: 'Wow, data is the way to answer very interesting questions,'” ​​Elbaz said.

He has acquired this skill for decades and eventually created Applied Semantics due to childhood obsession. Applied Semantics was later sold to Google for $102 million. Applied Semantics' main product is a content-related advertising tool that now generates about $13.6 billion in revenue for the search giant.

New journey

Four years after serving as engineering director at Google, Elbaz has had the same profound impact on the way technology is developed to use data in businesses. His new company, Factual, was founded in 2008 to develop the world's largest location-related dataset. Factual is not a well-known company. Although it knows that there are not many consumers, it has accumulated a large number of well-known corporate customers, including Yelp, Bing and Samsung. Customers use Factual's location data to make their consumer-facing products more dynamic and smarter.

Elbaz hopes to create a new generation of applications that can respond to the user's location by creating such a data center. “Through the location, you can understand people’s lifestyles, judge what they like, where they are, what they are doing, what they are going to do, etc.” He said, “Every industry has to get involved. New games, otherwise you will not be satisfied with the user."

Factual's mission is both risky and technically complex. It means that Factual has to compete with a number of companies, including Foursquare and Google, which is itself a large data provider. Both Google and Foursquare provide APIs (application programming interfaces) for developers to access location data. However, developers using those APIs have to run the risk of competing with Google and Foursquare for user and advertising revenue. For example, services like Bing and Yelp are unlikely to be able to get data from Google because, as Elbaz pointed out, "Google sees them as competitors."

Factual does not face this situation because it does not have a consumer-oriented product. Elbaz said, "We want to be a neutral data network where everyone can cooperate and trust."

To some extent, Factual represents the next phase in the evolution of the way technology companies use data. Over the years, companies like Google have developed sophisticated data mining methods, and small developers are happy to take advantage of the information they provide. But in Factual's view, developers should not rely on Google to filter and supply data. They should be able to access that information directly on their own. Therefore, Factual wants to turn the data itself into a product.

“Everyone is discussing tools to mine big data,” said Danny Rimer, a partner at Index Ventures. “But we believe there is another big opportunity in the data set itself.” Index Ventures is involved in Factual. A round of financing of $25 million.

Familiar opponent

This is not the first time El Barts has confronted Google. Before launching the AdSense program, the Applied Semantics team was developing a semantic-based search engine that not only searched for specific words on the page, but also searched for related words—a technology that Google had not mastered in the early years.

For example, the Applied Semantics system knows that if a user searches for a vegetarian restaurant, he may also be interested in a vegetarian restaurant because the two have a close relationship. The technique is very good, but when it comes to defeating Google, Elbaz admits, "We lost very badly."

Despite this, the system later became a fundamental part of developing AdSense. AdSense matches ads based on the context of the page. Now, Elbaz sees Factual as a simulated version of that tool. Due to the increasing popularity of mobile technology, it doesn't matter what people look at online. What matters is where and when they do it.

“If you want to personalize an app, we also feel that all apps should be personalized, you have to know your users, and location is the best way to get to know your users,” Elbaz said.

Using algorithms to predict real information

Currently, Factual has data covering 75 million locations, covering merchants, parks and other attractions in 50 countries. The location information collected by Factual is simple (such as mobile phone number, address and business hours), but the process of accumulation is not easy at all. Before starting to build the database and develop related technologies, Elbaz and his team were fully prepared for two years.

Factual works with hundreds of merchants around the world who are willing to share data and analyze billions of data points every day. For example, Yext is a company that specializes in helping small business marketers manage online information for companies, and it shares the exact data of its hundreds of thousands of small business customers with Factual.

Factual's system also grabs public data on the web, but according to Elbaz, extracting accurate information in this way is one of the company's most difficult tasks. Many mobile phone numbers are inaccurate, and the addresses are often incomplete. In many countries, there is no relevant information. "And the most difficult task is how to develop algorithms to predict real information?" Elbaz said.

Because data in many countries is unreliable, Factual needs local people to build what he calls the "gold standard database." These people will manually create a database, such as a database covering 100 restaurants in Japan. Then, Factual tests its algorithms against those databases. "If our algorithm can automatically find the same answer as the manual, then they are feasible," he said. Rimer said that this hardcore review is essential for Factual. "To start your work effectively, you have to provide a comprehensive service." He said, "Light brings information is not enough, we also need to ensure their accuracy."

Unlimited opportunities

Maintaining this quality control can be a challenge for a company looking to expand. According to Elbaz, Factual brings even more opportunities than AdSense. Be aware that AdSense contributes nearly a quarter to Google’s revenue.

“We can analyze the types of people entering the business, determine what they are doing, and be able to do this analysis on any part of the planet, which means that the information that can be integrated is endless,” says Elbaz.

Currently, companies such as Yelp and Bing are using Factual's database to seek international expansion. At the same time, startups are using it to increase the intelligence of their applications. For example, Shopular pushes coupons to users based on nearby stores. Tommy Tsai, co-founder of the service, admitted that without Factual, Shopular could not start the business. “In the beginning, we were thinking about building a location database ourselves, but after reading Factual's data, we clearly realized that our data quality did not reach the level of Factual.”

Factual not only pushes location data to businesses, but also extracts data from those companies and turns it into segmentation information about its users. For example, if a user frequently visits a location that is recognized by Factual as a golf driving range, Factual classifies the user as a golfer.

Are people really willing to be tracked?

The company is looking to integrate mobile advertising platforms to enable brand owners to target not only specific regions, but also golfers, shoppers, commuters and dozens of other people. “It’s all done without knowing people’s names, email addresses or other private information.” Elbaz pointed out, “The app is responsible for collecting information. And we’re just helping these companies understand what they’re doing in the background. information."

Of course, regardless of whether the information is anonymous or not, Factual's work will raise a question that is of concern: Is the consumer willing to be tracked all the time? Factual's vision is to make applications smarter, more in line with our needs, and to predict our needs ahead of time. But as companies like Factual make applications more personalized than ever, will consumers embrace this change? Would you think this is creepy? Do people really want the future that Factual wants to create?

The answer to these questions is not known, and Elbaz has a prophecy. “The scope of the creepy things will change dramatically,” he said. “A few years later, you will not consider the issues you are worried about now. People’s information sharing will increase by 10 to 100 times. You will Keep track of your heartbeat with health monitors, and the data will be shared between apps. We’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg. But it’s important to make sure that app developers are not evil.”

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