{"id":410,"date":"2012-04-10T19:48:36","date_gmt":"2012-04-10T19:48:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/?p=410"},"modified":"2016-08-22T23:06:31","modified_gmt":"2016-08-22T23:06:31","slug":"defining-big-data-part-1-how-data-has-begun-to-breed-like-rabbits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/defining-big-data-part-1-how-data-has-begun-to-breed-like-rabbits","title":{"rendered":"Defining Big Data – How Data has Begun to Breed Like Rabbits"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is Part 1 of a 5-part series devoted to exploring the concept of Big Data to determine what makes it different from other <\/em>hyped data “revolutions” \u00a0of the past.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

About three months ago I posted a simple question to my Facebook wall, asking whether my next computer should be an Apple or a PC.<\/p>\n

Over the next five hours I received over thirty opinions from students, senior executives, computer programmers, analysts and a random assortment of other friends and family. \u00a0The feedback helped me make an important consumer decision.<\/p>\n

From the perspective of your typical Facebook user, I had posted a question and received feedback from my network – a seemingly innocuous act.<\/p>\n

Let’s consider what happened from a technological perspective:<\/p>\n

My first action (posing the initial question) would have inserted a row in a table (let’s call it StatusUpdate), which would have contained attributes including a post date and post content. \u00a0This initial action would triggered several subsequent processes (I’ve taken some creative liberties here):<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. A task would have run to make certain inferences based on the content. \u00a0These inferences would update a table where Facebook compiles an index of my interests (ImplicitUserInterests).<\/li>\n
  2. Facebook would use these inferences to determine which contacts (UserContacts) within my network should receive the status update.<\/li>\n
  3. These contacts would have their walls (WallContent) updated with my status update.<\/li>\n
  4. As each contact responded, an additional table indexing their response would be updated (StatusUpdateResponse).<\/li>\n
  5. The content of the response would allow Facebook to make inferences about their interests (ImplicitUserInterests).<\/li>\n
  6. Their response would be shared on their wall (WallContent).<\/li>\n
  7. Facebook would have been able to make an inference about the relationship between the respondent and myself (UserRelationship).<\/li>\n
  8. A bunch of other stuff that I can’t even imagine would have also happened.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    We can quickly see how one simple act sets a sequence of events into motion, culminating in the creation of a large set of data.<\/p>\n

    Now consider the following:<\/p>\n