The merger and acquisition scene is pretty hot right now, with significant consolidation around location-based and data-centric applications.  Groupon recently bought Whrrl, and hours later eBay snatched up WHERE.  There’s a rising profit margin around consumer data, as more verticals build businesses around its collection and analysis.  But where does the consumer fit into all of this, and what of their data?

It seems like it’s the 1990s all over again, with web-based services launching around niche feature sets. It was only yesterday Delicious users sighed with trepidation as the social bookmarking service was rescued by AVOS, a new firm started by the founders of YouTube, just weeks after Yahoo announced it would be dropping Delicious from its over-extended portfolio.  Friendster and Google Video users haven’t been so lucky.

Thanks to recent cloud developments, consumers are seeing big perks with media storage, and services developing around cloud access.  But what can often happen in the case of a ripening M&A streak is consumers are at risk of losing their data.  Imagine losing your photos, shopping history and recommendations, music catalog and videos.  It’s a devastating thought, but one that consumers will have to revisit, now that the data-driven market is undergoing commercial maturation.

One perk about today’s cloud market is the revised concepts around consumer data, along with improved platform standards that can utilize and repurpose data.  So even if a service gets acquired or merely goes under, consumers today are more likely to have options around keeping their data, or putting it to work elsewhere.  With Whrrl’s acquisition in particular, one company hopes to benefit its own growth, and its users, now that Whrrl’s service will be dissolved.

Bizzy, a local restaurant search and recommendation service, saw an opportunity to give Whrrl users a chance to put their data to work.  After learning of Whrrl’s decision to offer users their data in a hard-to-read HTML file, Bizzy went to work developing an import option for its own network.  It’s a rare chance to see what a free market can accomplish when consumers are at the forefront of their corporate decisions, and Bizzy’s hoping to not only attract more users, but prove its potential in the process.

“Whrrl’s acquisition was fantastic news as far as we’re concerned.  So many things are happening in the space,” says Ryan Kuder, vice president of marketing at Bizzy.  “There’s so many things happening in the space, and one thing we liked that Whrrl did is present to users their amassed data.  We can show them how to use it.”

As far as integrating one data set into another platform, Bizzy ran into its own set of issues.  Data from Whrrl is designed to work within its system, and not Bizzy’s.  A primary difference between Whrrl’s data and Bizzy’s is that Whrrl’s “socieities” format allowed for check-ins, but didn’t measure sentiment.  There’s inherent recommendations with Whrrl check-ins, but Bizzy’s system takes things a step further, letting you mark how you felt about a particular location.

“We had to reluctantly assume that Whrrl check-ins are places you liked,” Kuder explains.  “Our data shows that’s the case about 80% of the time.  But just because you check in someplace, doesn’t mean you like it.  Sentiment is really important and that’s why we built check-outs in the first place.”

For check-in/check-out sticklers, you can still update your preferences for a given location after the Whrrl data import has taken place.  Beyond check-ins, your photos and tips from various locations are incorporated into your Bizzy recommendations as well.  When it comes to consumer data, both Whrrl and Bizzy took a vested interest in the user, putting them in control.

“It’s not every day a competitor shuts down and makes their data available,” Kuder goes on.  “When they do, yes, it’s slightly opportunistic for us, but more importantly there’s Whrrl users out there that invested energy, time and data to their profiles.  Whrrl did the good corporate citizen thing, and I think it’s a win-win all around.”