Tagged: social control

Article on Big Data in Sunday Telegraph’s Business Technology supplement

FireShot Screen Capture #242 - 'Richard Stacy_ The algorithm is the most powerful tool of social control since the sword - Business Technology' - biztechreport_co_uk_2013_07_richard-stacy-the-algorithm-is-most-powerfHere is a small article on Big Data I wrote as the opening shot in the Business Technology supplement published yesterday in the Sunday Telegraph.

Big Data is certainly a big buzzword, but there are those out there who say Big Data is nothing really new.  As a rule I find these people have careers based on what we can now call small data (or perhaps that should be Small Data).  Big Data certainly is something new, and there are two reasons why it is aptly named.

First, Big Data is really big.  It is not just a bit larger than the data we had before, nor is it just lots more of small data.  Big Data is defined by the fact that it is so large, it cannot be handled by the tools or techniques conventionally associated with data analysis (one of the reasons its rubs small data people up the wrong way) and this also means we can use it to do things which were not possible when all we had was small data. Continue reading