As technology PR professionals we are used to hearing about the much hyped next big thing and how it’s going to revolutionise our businesses and our lives. One term that you’ll be hearing soon if you haven’t already is big data and this blog is dedicated to explaining very briefly what it means.
Big data is a term used to describe the ridiculously huge quantities of unstructured and structured data that a company creates – the type of data that would take too much time and be too expensive to load into a database for data.
When we talk about the data as being big, that refers to the sheer volume of data that we’re all busy creating on a daily basis. Currently we create 1.2 Zetabytes of data per year and this is only going to get bigger.
Management of this unstructured data is extremely important as if left unmanaged, it can be hugely costly to businesses when it comes to storage or if a specific piece of data is needed for legal reasons or a compliance audit.
Still confused? Then check out this Infographic from Tech Target that explains exactly what big data is and how it is used by various sectors including, the US Government who credited Barak Obama’s Presidential re-election campaign success to use of big data technology to harness social media.
