We recently received a request from a website that profiles startups and entrepreneurs to run a story on TrendSpottr. While we’ll link to the story once it’s published, here’s the Q&A that we exchanged with the writer. We hope you find this information “timely” and “relevant”.

1.  How did the idea of TrendSpottr first come to you?

My cofounder (@Alain_Chesnais) and I (@markzohar) came up with the idea for TrendSpottr in July 2010. We had worked together at a previous startup and we were both fascinated by the challenges and opportunities presented by the exponential growth in data. We were particularly intrigued by the growth in crowdsourced and crowdshared information, such as Facebook, Twitter and now Google +. We recognized that existing data analytics solutions would not be able to scale efficiently or effectively to handle this exponential data growth (eg., capital costs for servers and storage, processing timeframes, etc.). We also recognized a fundamental value shift occurring with respect to the relevance of data — from being focused mostly on retrospective and descriptive analysis (e.g., traditional social monitoring and analytics) to becoming increasingly focused on real-time and predictive analysis. In fact, our first prototypes confirmed that the half-life of social data was measured in hours not days.

We saw an opportunity to approach the problem of data analytics from a new perspective; focusing on real-time and predictive data analysis that would identify the most timely, relevant and trending information from a firehose of content. This approach led us to develop the core TrendSpottr algorithms which identify real-time trending information at its earliest acceleration point to provide our users with relevant early insights. Our users have access to information that is available hours or even days before it has reached general awareness.

In essence, TrendSpottr acts as an early warning system to alert users to the most important and trending information about the topics and issues they follow. The predictive part of our service is that each piece of content we identify as “trending” has implicit predictive value and will continue to have viral impact for the next several hours or days. As a result, we can accurately claim that information “spotted” by TrendSpottr will continue to have resonance and impact for the next 8-48 hours. 

2.  Could you explain what real-time trends mean in everyday language?

Real-time trends represent the most timely and relevant information about any topic. TrendSpottr answers the question: “What’s important and relevant now?”.  The reason real-time trends are deemed timely and relevant is that they demonstrate the highest velocity, acceleration and amplification of any similar content.  

3.  When you refer to real-time trends for any topic, does it mean only global topics or does it also include topics that are more local in nature?

TrendSpottr identifies real-time trends for any topic whether it be global or local. In fact, using our “Advanced Search” feature, users can filter real-time trending results by specific location or city. For example, a user can search for real-time trends about “Entrepreneur” worldwide or choose to filter the results for “Entrepreneur” to view trending results only from New York or London. 

4. In what ways can communities, organizations or individuals benefit from TrendSpottr?

Our service significantly improves the signal-to-noise problem with social media. A TrendSpottr search provides the most timely and relevant information, organized and curated in a way that’s easy to understand, consume and share. Secondly, TrendSpottr serves as an early warning system for governments, brands and organizations and alerts them to trending issues that will continue to accelerate in importance and impact. The ability to identify crises, breaking news and viral behaviour hours or days before its impact reaches general awareness is the core value proposition of TrendSpottr. Finally, many media companies and social media leaders are using TrendSpottr to increase their online engagement and influence by spotting and publishing timely information that has both high resonance and virality. As a result, our users are increasing their online presence (more followers, retweets, shares, etc.), increasing their Klout scores, and are literally “ahead of the curve” when it comes to information relevance and timeliness.

5. What kind of future plans do you have for TrendSpottr?

We launched TrendSpottr as a free-to-use general purpose site in July 2011. We have been delighted by the response to our service and we have a very dedicated and loyal user base. In fact, almost 50% of our users return to TrendSpottr on a regular basis. In the next 60 days, we will be launching a premium version that will include several new and advanced features, including streaming analytics, personalized alerts and notifications and historical trend analysis. These premium services will be offered on a paid subscription basis and will be targeted at PR agencies and brands, the financial community, bloggers and social media influencers, newsrooms and journalists, and government agencies. In addition, we will soon be launching with several partners that will integrate and promote TrendSpottr across their websites and applications. These partners include major media sites and digital publishers, large data and content providers and content marketing companies. 

What are you waiting for? Head over to TrendSpottr.com and try it for yourself!