Source: The New York Times

Recently, I was talking to a colleague about how there is now technology that enables non-verbal brainwave communication between two people. Essentially, you put a device on your head that translates chemical synapses in your brain into patterns that are recognized as words, phrases or entire ideas. A person on the receiving end of this communication can then absorb these patterns in their own brain device, which will then interact with his chemical synapses. And, a conversation occurs.

It is absolutely mind-numbing to think about how much data needs to be processed in order to create patterns out of chemical synapses that an individual experiences at any given time. In fact, the adult human brain is estimated to contain from 100 to 500 trillion synapses! How could there possibly be a technology powerful enough (or scientists insightful enough) to process and interpret that volume of data, and then find a way to translate that into meaningful communication?

Well, on a much (much) (much) smaller scale, Zynga (public as of this morning) and other social game companies have achieved a similar feat. (Side note: VentureBeat’s Dean Takahashi penned a great piece on the history of Zynga.)

In our view, the Internet has been through three defining phases of its short life in the modern era:

• Phase I: The 90’s was all about the Web page and all the metrics companies needed to track to see how valuable their websites were. Impressions. CPMs.
• Phase II: The first decade of the 21st century moved onto more sophisticated analysis around the action, led by Google’s PPC revolution. Clicks. CPCs.
• Phase III: In just the past couple of years, innovators in the Web (and mobile) space have begun to focus on the user. CAC. ROI. LTV.

The amount of data that tracking a user-based Web requires vs. a page-based Web or even a click-based Web is exponential. Take, for instance, Yahoo, one of the most heavily trafficked sites of all time. In August 2011, Yahoo was generating approximately 5.5 billion page views per month in the U.S. (see latest numbers here) That’s a TON of data that needs to be processed by the folks at Yahoo… and, even more work to make sense of all that data to yield actionable insights.

Now, consider Zynga.

Because Zynga optimizes their applications on user actions, not page actions, their data requirements are exponentially greater. As of early 2011, Zynga was tracking over 70 billion actions per day. And, they have had to figure out how to collect, store, analyze and optimize on all this data in almost real-time in order to remain competitive.

Zynga tracks 70B messages a day; Omniture tracks 30B daily. Welcome to the new Web.

So, what does this mean for other “new-school” Web and mobile companies whose success or failure is based on their ability to analyze and optimize off of hundreds of millions or billions of data points… every day… in real time? Are the “traditional” (or “tradigital” as a friend recently said to me) Web analytics providers like Omniture, Webtrends and Google Analytics equipped to handle this scale? Are they fundamentally structured to not only technically process this level of data (of course Google can process billions of transactions a day), but to make sense of it, and deliver the data in a way that businesses can comprehend and base decisions?

I’m not so sure.

The big-data wave is here, and with the emergence and hyper-growth of social and mobile games and commerce apps, storefronts and other high-engagement user experiences, it’s far from reaching its peak. I’d argue that the winners and losers in this next decade will be decided by who recognizes the importance of deep diving into their user data, and optimize experiences around every micro-transaction and micro-action that occurs on their website or app. We may be a long way from installing micro-brain-transmitters to capture trillions of brain synapses and translate them into buyer decision analyses and business intelligence…

…but maybe not as far as one might think. In this future paradigm where there aren’t billions of transactions occurring daily, but trillions(!), who will be ready to tackle the big enormous data issue? Who will be prepared to process, interpret and act on this information?

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About the author: Dan Kimball is Kontagent’s CMO and resident storyteller. His drive to make sense of complex concepts and solutions comes from his unique background in philosophy, quantitative research and brand marketing. You can contact Dan at: @dmkimball05.