It lost more than circulation revenue, too, since Reader's Digest exists so that the company can mine its database to cross-sell books, videos and CDs.

FORBES: Old Dog, New Tricks

With the latest technology, says Cho, the bank can measure the profitability of every branch employee and customer, mine its customer database and run sophisticated risk-management and credit-analysis programs.

FORBES: Korea's King Of Options

LinkedIn Recruiter, for example, is a recruiting application that lets corporate recruiting teams mine the entire LinkedIn professional database to find and attract people.

FORBES: The Sleepy Little HR Software Market Is On Fire

Chief executive Ryan Howard plans to mine what he says is a database of 40 million patients by, for example, helping pharmaceutical companies enroll patients in clinical trials, or monitoring a drug following its release on the market.

FORBES: Free Electronic Health Record Provider Practice Fusion Raises Total $64 Million

We also have the ability to check where a particular consignment of coltan comes from: we have a database of the residual elements typical of each known mine and can thus check material, as with a fingerprint.

FORBES: My Nomination For Worst Law Of The Year: Dodd Frank On Conflict Minerals

More visitors to data mine and a great way to add location tagging to their ever increasing database.

FORBES: Google Maps - The New Standard

Mr Thomas said water in any mine would be a risk but when the mine operator applies for a licence to work a particular reserve of coal, there is a national database with records showing where that seam had been worked before.

BBC: Gleision Colliery near Cilybebyll: Brief history