Big Data: Taking the Good with the Bad - Simon Nugent Week 9 Readings
“Data is the new Oil”, so said the European Consumer Commissioner Meglena Kuneva, and she had a point too. Today’s society with its penchant for all things connected online, allows for a most valuable resource to exist electronically. Data is and will continue to be one of the most important and valuable resources available to big business for the foreseeable future.
But why data? Facebook posts, silly quizzes about which Jonas Brother you are and spam emails can’t be all that useful can they? Well, it’s important to remember all of the data we enter online. Google searches, credit applications and medical information all uploaded, published and clicked on are aspects of your online footprint that involve data. But that’s not all. You see, data isn’t valuable in and of itself. However, when data is processed, it unlocks a deep well of information. As Siegel (2013) so aptly put it:
“It uncovers what drives people and the actions they take-what makes us tick and how the world works. With the new knowledge gained, prediction is possible. “
Yes, that’s right, with the use of data processing, companies can really make predictions on, who you are as a person, what you might be interested in and what you might be doing on a day-to-day basis (Siegel, 2013). For the companies this means they have more daily opportunities to sell you stuff. They can tell what you’d probably buy and what you’d probably be doing online at any certain time and can tailor their advertising right to you. Though not always to a completely accurate degree (Siegel, 2013).
This can be very good for you. On one hand it means that it’s likely that ads you see are only going to be things that you want to buy, and similarly, you will be recommended movies that you actually want to see and music that you want to listen to. Your online experience can be tailored to you and centered on you. It means more meaningful communication between the consumer and the company and therefore less junk that you need to sort through (Siegel, 2013).
However Big Data has it’s own dark sides too (Woodford, 2014). Some would see this new world of Data collection as a mass invasion of privacy. In many cases, third parties have access to personal data about you and the government is privy to much of your information too (The Economist, 2012). In this case it can basically be said that parts of who you are being sold. So is data collection really as good as we hope it is or do the negatives outweigh the positives?
Whatever you happen to believe about data collection, it is clear that it is beginning to define the way organizations gain capitol. Data is becoming a more and more important resource in the world of New Media, and the questions is how much of it are you willing to give up?
References:
The Economist. (2012). The dark side of big data. [Online Video]. 26 June. Available from:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raJOkguPrH4. [Accessed: 11 May 2014].
Siegel, Eric. 2013. “Introduction – The Prediction Effect.” In Predictive Analytics, 1-16. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons Inc.
Darryl Woodford (2014). New Media, Big Data and Telemetrics, lecture notes distributed in the topic KCB206 Internet, Self and Beyond. QUT, Kelvin Grove on 1 May.













