Mofo … ? Mobike and Ofo reportedly discussing merger

Mofo was the last time U2 were musically inventive. Listen the ramping layers of the intro:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQtITWp3ua4

They were still in their 30s then, it's nearly 20 years since their 90's 'colour' period; that makes me feel old. They need a great new producer badly.

It got waaaay funnier (and cooler) when someone, ahem, brought the GDPR to the party.

 This is funny because Mofo is a common abbreviation of "mother fuc£er", i can't think why that isn't mentioned in the article 

Hi Carlton,

I speak as someone who enjoys your writing and projects a lot. But somehow this point about data mining has in my view got distorted and is not being accurately described, however it originated. So I'm trying to get people to slow down and consider what they're repeating because it seems a stretch to me. I simply don't think the primary motivation for a bike hire scheme is that it generates data that could be used elsewhere, and this impression, perhaps unwittingly created by the people who talked to you, ought not to be propogated without rather more to back it up.

Information and data mining attract are likely to attract investors because of its potential to create monopoly within the bike hire market, for instance. This is the same straegy as Uber: own the data, own the market. Extend to new, related products afterwards (such as driverless cars).

A global bike hire monopoly is not to be sniffed at and is dependent on the data mining to create it.

I'm not disputing that there is value in data mining. I merely say that the data mining adds depth and breadth to the investment proposition, it is probably not a standalone activity, as some of the reports appear to imply.

(As an aside data sharing without consent is unlawful in the EU, so it is standard to state that it won't take place.)

It's a "misunderstanding" provided to me by one of the dockless bike-share companies. I really don't pick these sort of facts out of thin air.

Interestingly, at least one of the new bike share companies has an explicit code-of-conduct saying it will NOT provide this sort of data to third parties. That isn't proof one or more of the other companies do sell on the data in this way but it's certainly strong circumstantial evidence that such practices are either taking place or were once part of the model.

“for all the PR about wanting to change the world by making it easy and convenient for people to hire bikes cheaply, data mining is an essential part of their business model.”

This is a misunderstanding courtesy BikeBiz that keeps being repeated. “Some transport-share apps track users for a few minutes either side of their journeys, and this will be information that could one day be monetised, investors are banking on,” they say, and this article appears to echo.

Data mining is of course an essential part of the bike hire business model, but not the end goal of providing the service as this and BikeBiz imply. Data mining (and having the biggest dataset possible) helps companies solidify a market monopoly. It helps you know how fast to replace bikes, where they need to be, where markets might be tapped next. 

It could also help in secondary markets like advertising, but these are likely to be smaller value than physical hires. (As journalists you should know how little advertising pays!) Maybe more importantly it could help in adjacent markets like car or taxi hire. 

Data mining has become central to all kind of products: think Uber and Amazon, as well as Facebook and Google. But it's not always or even usually the point of a providing a service.