What is big data and what is its use?
Nowadays, almost 6,500 million connected devices share information over the Internet. In 2025, this figure will rise up to 20,000 million. Big data analyses this “sea of data” to convert it into the information that is transforming our world. There are already millions of devices that provide data every day and with the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT), this figure is expected to increase.
Before you get into Big Data, what is data?
The quantities, characters, or symbols on which operations are performed by a computer, which may be stored and transmitted in the form of electrical signals and recorded on magnetic, optical, or mechanical recording media are called data.
Now, let’s learn Big Data introduction
What is Big Data?
Big data is a term that describes the large volume of data — both structured and unstructured — that inundates a business on a day-to-day basis. But it’s not the amount of data that’s important. It’s what organizations do with the data that matters. Big data can be analyzed for insights that lead to better decisions and strategic business moves. In other words, Big data is the set of technologies created to store, analyze and manage this bulk data, a macro-tool created to identify patterns in the chaos of this explosion in information in order to design smart solutions. Today it is used in areas as diverse as medicine, agriculture, gambling, and environmental protection.
Now, When is it used for? What would someone do with all these data?
The answer is pretty simple. Data is wealth. Most companies use this data to reach their target consumer. For example, let us take Facebook. Every day, we feed Facebook with mounds of information. Every 60 seconds, 136,000 photos are uploaded, 510,000 comments are posted, and 293,000 status updates are posted. That is a LOT of data. With data like this, Facebook knows who our friends are, what we look like, where we are, what we are doing, our likes, our dislikes, and so much more. Some researchers even say Facebook has enough data to know us better than our therapists. Facebook uses this information to target ads towards us. This is just one application of Big Data, but there is a lot more.
Let us see a very real-life example. Facebook would have asked you for the poll to check if you are safe if there are any calamities at your location. But why does it matter to Facebook? It is a social media platform after all right. The thing is, Facebook even collects this data. What they decide to do with that data is up to them, but Data is wealth and that is the reason why Facebook is one of the wealthiest companies.
Hope you got an idea of what Big Data is and how and where it is used.
