Big data transforming the online world

Big data is changing the world rapidly and people will only see more offered to us as technology catches up. Just remember what sort of information trail you are leaving behind the next time you go for a run or play a game of poker

Today, people are bound to the internet like never before. Everything from mobile phones, smart watches, fridges and even toasters are connected and the electronic devices individuals take with them and have in their homes are providing a digital picture of our daily lives, collating information on our movements, purchases, searches and actions.

Big data can be classified as an incredibly large amount of data that surpasses what we can collect, store and analyse using traditional computing methods.
The real potential for organisations is being able to analyse their customer’s behaviour, acting at the right time to provide their product when a customer needs it or realising when, where and how their product is being bought.

The challenges that organisations face when trying to collate and understand this incredible amount of data is the storage, management and analysis of data sets that are so big that they require specialist software like Hadoop and highly configured raw processing power to pull data together in a sensible amount of time.

The evidence of big data playing a part in our lives is already clear. It’s no coincidence when the advert for your favourite food pops up on a website you are visiting just as it hits the time when you usually have lunch.
If you’re lucky enough to own a high-tech fridge, some models will allow users to scan the barcodes of products as they load up the shelves. Once that product has been finished and disposed of, the fridge will automatically communicate with the customer’s preferred supermarket and re-order the product for them.

Imagine the size of the data packages sent from homes to supermarkets and online-retailers if everyone in the UK owned a smart fridge like this. You can start getting a picture about just how much ‘invisible’ data is transferred between consumers and organisations by thinking of how much information you hand over to your preferred brands.