Converting data into information:Where to start?

We (my company) runs a website which have lots of data recorded like user registration, visits, clicks, what the stuff they post etc etc but so far we don't have a tool to find out how to monitor entire thing or how to find patterns in it so that we can understand what kind of information we can get from it? So that Mgmt can take decisions based on it. In short, the people do at Amazon or Google based on data they retrieve, we want a similar thing.

Now, after th开发者_StackOverflow社区e intro, I would like to know what technology could it be called;is it Data Mining,Machine Learning or what? Where should we start to convert meaningless data into useful Information?

I think what you need enters in the "realm" of: parsing data, creating graphs, showing statistics about some elements, etc.

There is no "easy" answer, I can only answer parts of your question.

• There are no premade magical analytical tools, big companies have their own backend tools tunned to parse the large amounts of data and spit out data summaries that are then used to build graphs or for statistical analysis.

• I think the domain you are searching for is statistical data analysis. But there are many parts that go together here.

Best advice I can give you is to set up specific goals for you analysis and then try to see what is the best solution, you question is too open.

ie. if you are interested in visits/clicks/website related statistics Google Analytics is a great tool, and very easy to use.