The New Frontier of Big Data
Whenever people used to talk about ‘data,’ the image that came to mind was of numbers, mindless information that wouldn’t make much sense to the average person. Data entry jobs were considered a last resort, entry level work just to get your foot in the door of a major company. Yet the tides are changing and data has become an integral part of success for individuals, governments, and organisations around the world.
This new tidal wave is known as Big Data.
Data has expanded at an exponential rate in recent years, so much so that it is like the glaciers that rolled down over the northern hemisphere during the Ice Age. We’re watching this intense mass cutting through our lives, inching slowly over the bulk of our existence.
Even though the term ‘Big Data’ is becoming more and more commonplace these days, organisations and companies are struggling to decide what to do with it all and how to handle it. Business expert IBM states that, “Every day, we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data –so much that 90% of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years.” To put that in perspective, 90% of all of the data in the world has been created in the last 0.0002% of civilization’s existence.
Reasons for the Massive Amount of Data
One of the key reasons for the sudden explosion in data is that it is easier than ever to collect it. As technology continues its forward march, more and more people are willing to hand over data (for making purchases, signing up on email lists, getting information, etc). On top of that, storing data is now cheaper than ever.