Last week, the Rayno Report hosted a social chat on #IoTanalytics. For those of you not up to speed on buzzwords and hashtags, that means how analytics technology can be applied to the gobs of data being collected from the millions of devices that will be connected online, now referred to by marketers worldwide as the Internet of Things (IoT).

We're in the early stages of IoT, of course, which is the concept that machines and devices connected to the Internet will communicate with other machines, in addition to us. The long-term vision is that this machine-generated data, coming from millions of devices and sensors, can be analyzed and used to deliver insight, automation, and efficiency, among other things.

One of our guest hosts, Tate Cantrell (@Tate8tech), CTO of data-center provider Verne Global, says “IoT has the potential to change everything-from how our coffee is brewed to how the lights go out at night.”

But Cantrell was careful to point out that all the data is just noise without analytics. Sophisticated analytics and “big data” tools will be needed to make sense of all this data. “#IoTanalytics is to #IoT what a symphony is to noise,” said @Tate8Tech.

Craig Sowell, SVP at Datapipe, also know as @iconictimes, said “IoT is about the instrumentation of everything across a system... sensors that connect to all parts of a car is a good example - the entire system connected.”

When I asked the participants where we were going with the IoT and analytics in 5-10 years, Cantrell said we're moving toward a world supercomputer, where the entire world is wired and analyzing everything.

“We are leading to a world super computer, and with that power comes great responsibility #PeterParker,” wrote Cantrell.

Cantrell said that one of the largest benefits of the combination of #Iot and #analytics is energy consumption. He pointed to research from GE indicating that even incremental energy savings in large industries represents billions of dollars. “1% Fuel Savings in Aviation Industry, Commercial Segment = $30B savings.” Also, a “1% Reduction in System Inefficiency in Healthcare Industry = $63B savings.”

That data is supplied by GE, here in its Industrial Internet document.

@AutoITNews said we are heading toward an automated, self-driving world, in which automobiles can communicate with each other and draw on real-time highway safety and weather information. We may not get there in 5-10 years, says @AutoITNews, but the data that can be analyzed will help increase safety and reduce fuel consumption.

@ksingletarry said that “#IoT should deliver real-time public transportation stats and road conditions for bad weather - before self-driving cars.”

In another example, Cantrell said that Verne client BMW saved 82% on energy costs using big data applications based on renewable sources.

Overall, the #iotanalytics crowd indicates they expect huge potential from the combination of #IoT and #Analytics. You can follow the transcript on the CrowdChat page here.

We're looking forward to another episode of #IotAnalytics coming up next month. Special thanks to Verne Global for sponsoring the chat and to CrowdChat for their cool tools.

Rayno Report will be hosting as series of social chats on different topics going forward. If you have interest in sponsoring these, please contact me at [email protected].

Join us on Thursday at 2PM ET/11AM PT for a #Webscalestorage chat, on which we'll discuss trends in scaleable data-center storage technology. You can mark your calendars by going to the CrowdChat page, which will we use to run the chat.