Data is all around us. In our daily life, we may deal with some data on specific industries.
If you’re a programmer, you will deal with data in the machine learning process and measure the performance. If you’re a doctor, you will check your patients’ vitals. And if you’re a digital marketer, you will track your progress and measure return on investment ROI.
There’re a lot of examples for this type of data, but is this the only data existing in the world?
Big Data
Well, all of the previous examples are important types of data. Nowadays, companies are searching for better ways and technologies in order to maintain their position in the market, be ahead in the competition, and prepare for the future.
From here, the term “Big Data” has come. It refers to a massive data set that can be analyzed to help in making patterns and decision making.
According to Gartner — it’s a huge-volume, fast-velocity, and different variety information assets that demand an innovative platform for enhanced insights and decision making.
Big data is not like the ordinary data we’re dealing with everyday, it’s measured in exabytes. The 1 exabytes in 10⁸ gigabytes (a 10 followed by 8 zeros). It’s not a thing that you can use with your computer. It needs a supercomputer to deal with this big amount of data.
How do big companies use big data?
At this point, we know how big data needs complex machines so that companies can take advantage of it. Here’s a list of some well known companies that are using big data:
1- IBM
From the IBM point of view, big data is not just a technology. It’s a business strategy for capitalizing on information resources.
From that opinion, IBM is now creating big data solutions for its customers. The company makes sure that the data is built on a solid foundation as well as being accessible with scaled insights.
2- Google
From the foundation of Google in 1999 till now, Google is trying its best to enhance its search engine to deliver the best answer for its users. Without going into details of how Google does that, it depends on some factors.
One of these factors is the location of the searching user if he/ she searches for a local hotel for example. This is done to bring the most possible accurate results around.
This and all other data is recorded by Google and kept in order to use them at the right time. Now, you can imagine how big the data Google is operating with.
With millions of websites, services, and products, Google uses Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, and Machine Learning to improve the results.
3- Facebook
Have you ever asked yourself how much data Facebook knows about you?
When you meet a new friend ending up with a friend suggestion of him/ her from Facebook, Searching for something on the search engine ends up seeing it right in front of you in the Facebook newsfeed, and more.
Facebook is relying on big data for a long time. The reason is Facebook needs to improve the customer experience for its users which is helpful also while running suitable ads and earning money.
Conclusion
Big Data is a very powerful technology that helps a lot of companies in their work. Sometimes, there are some discussions made to think about the right of collecting information about users, but this technology is still a great way to prepare for the future.
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