150 years ago, the first transcontinental telegraph was sent, forever transforming how data was communicated. This shift away from physical delivery began the data revolution, claiming the Pony Express as its first victim just two days after that first telegraph.

Fast forward to 2011. You now have applications, social networks, file sharing, teleconferencing, music, videos, customer data, and business insights – all hosted in the cloud. Whether you are managing data at work, home, or on a mobile device, chances are that you're both managing and communicating in the cloud.

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Today, many of the world's most successful companies – Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google, Twitter, and our parent salesforce.com – are providing cloud solutions as the best way to manage and communicate both consumer and business data. How did we get to this point?

We tackle this question in our infographic, "How Data Found a Home in the Cloud". We found that as the ability to communicate increases, the volume of information increases at an even faster rate. Facebook and Foursquare check-ins are a great example; as it has become easier to share your location, the volume of real-time geo-location communications has increased dramatically. When the volume of information increases at a faster pace than the ability to absorb and react does, it creates a "data problem" where both consumers and business are buried in the amount of information they have to manage.

Today, there is an expectation that information will be delivered instantly and individuals and businesses will deliver real-time interaction and feedback. The cloud centralizes everything in one place with business systems for management as well as solutions for social sharing and instant interaction. In essence, the cloud gives us a unique opportunity to solve the "data problem."

This infographic shows a journey that has plenty of ups and downs (hello dotcom bust!) and plenty of game changers (Internet innovation). We would love to get your thoughts on how this data evolution has impacted your world.

Personally, my career has been shaped by this transformation starting with the move of graphic design from paper to the Mac and then from print design to Internet design (yes some of us remember a world before the Internet). It has been an amazing journey now focused on enterprise cloud computing, specifically marketing the value of data in the cloud with Data.com. I look forward to hearing your story, drop us a comment here on the blog.

-Tricia Gellman