Lastly it also reminds me of this article from a few days ago illustrates what crazy (but profitable) things you can do with data/behaviour/trend analysis (how the Target shops target you advertising); http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-targe...
Zynga continues a long tradition of gambling/addiction innovation in San Francisco, going back at least to the invention of the slot machine by Charles Fey in ~1895:
I am sure a lot of the game companies (Zynga, online poker etc) are all over this!
Also reminds me a little of this awesome Reddit interview as well (the guy explains how data driven the online game companies are and its quite awesome and scary); http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/pc6j9/iama_former_full...
Lastly it also reminds me of this article from a few days ago illustrates what crazy (but profitable) things you can do with data/behaviour/trend analysis (how the Target shops target you advertising); http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-targe...