- November 28, 2016
- 11:41 am
- Fady Harfoush
- no comments
The Xchange
Welcome to the Xchange a forum to discuss and share ideas on current events, and trends in data analytics and pertinent technology. We hope you will find the discussions insightful, and stimulating.
In a universe trending more towards digitization and automation big data has been described as the new oil boom, the new gold rush or to put more broadly the new commodity. But unlike traditional commodities we still have no good way to price data, not to mention who owns it. I am referring mainly to consumer generated data. Is it by the number of bits and bytes? Is 25 Tb of data more valuable than 25 Gb? In this business where content is king, what is the business value proposition of Twitter that delivers close to 500 million tweets a day if we have no intelligent and quick way to process all this data? It is no exaggeration to assert that close to 99% of the data published by social media outlets can be garbage. Yet 1% of 500 million tweets is a considerable 5 million tweets. The challenge is to find and extract the good data from the bad data, so called the signal from the noise, and do it fast. Recent elections have raised fundamental questions on the role of social media in disseminating information or news, considering that many users resorted to social media rather than traditional outlets for their news. Facebook and Google have come under strong criticisms for the impact published fake news might have played in the elections. Before we rush to conclusions it is important to recognize that we live in a world where what we see is less and less what we get. Discerning the truth from the fake, in a digital world and a virtual reality where the possibilities are limitless is a very challenging task. We are at the tip of the Iceberg and many questions remain unanswered. This should provide ample opportunity for many, irrespective of their field of studies and specialization, to participate and make a positive impact.
A Quinlan School of Business student uses a terminal during a from the Rambler Investment Fund (RIF) club meeting in the CME Group Foundation Financial Services and Business Analytics Lab located in Room 302 of the Schreiber Center on Friday, September 4, 2015 (Photo by Heather Eidson).