Facebook finally opens its data firehose to select advertisers

Until now, Facebook has been wary of doling out big data to advertisers. It's a practice long used by Twitter — a company that has profited immensely from it.

See also: 8 Marketers Doing Big Data Right

But now, the social media giant is finally making its firehose available to a select group through Topic Data, a new analytics tool developed with DataSift, an analytics company

For now, Topic Data will only be available in the U.S. and U.K. to a "limited number of DataSift's partners." All of the partners will be Facebook-approved

Facebook emphasizes, of course, that this is totally privacy-friendly. It will also only be used for general insights, not targeted ads Read more...

More about Big Data, Advertising, Marketing, Social Media, and Facebook