The way I think of alternative data is data about a business or industry that is obtained, collated, and analyzed through non-traditional communication channels, and helps to provide a better picture of how a company or industry is doing than just relying on trade data and financial statements. The best example of this I can think of is companies scraping AliBaba at certain frequencies, trying to ascertain the movement of certain products or raw materials. This data is then sold to investment firms and hedge funds, because they feel it gives them an edge.

One company that operates in this space is YipitData. From what I've been told, they started as something similar to GroupOn but then pivoted to this space after scraping for their own competitive intelligence reasons.