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At the recent ITEXPO (News - Alert) East 2011 in Miami, TMC’s Patrick Barnard had the opportunity to interview Aidan Connolly of Idiro Technologies’ CEO.

The company works in predictive analytics, specifically social network analysis. According to Connolly, the company analyzes the behavior of online communities, identifying “patterns of communication” between people, and how this affects the adoption of products and services.

It’s a hot area now, and Connolly said they particularly focus on telecoms, since there are rich social networks there, and “it’s a monetizable customer base as well.”

It’s one of the primary ways that organizations can get to tap into a large pool of customer data. There’s a lot of value in terms of discovering what customers’ patterns are, and what their likes and dislikes are, which of course is the coin of the realm.

“We rarely make a decision in isolation,” Connolly said, explaining that friends and family are generally the company’s most trusted sources of information -- since they always act based on the information we’ve been given about something. And the way this translates, Connolly explained, is that if you have a connected customer base, you can see what decisions are being made, and how products are being diffused through a customer base.

Such insight is solid gold for marketers, many whom desire the cross and upsell and customer churn reduction alone.

Privacy settings are a large concern for companies such as Idiro. Connolly admitted that it is an issue, but when you’re looking at an enclosed customer base, “normally the owner of that base, a telecom operator or social networker, does have the right to analyze that data.” In other words, a marketer can look at your social interactions and offer you an ad for a new iPhone, but isn’t allowed to say “Hey, we know you want this because all your Facebook (News - Alert) friends have one and you don’t,” -- which, yes, is a relief.