Share |

Content about Facebook

March 14, 2013

Social media data is playing an increasingly important role in marketing strategies around the world. But how reliable is this data? Dominic Pollard draws inspiration from Schrödinger’s cat and quantum physics to explain why marketers should advance with caution.

The rise of big data and the developed world’s increasingly compulsive use of social media have gone hand-in-hand. Consequentially, social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook have become an incremental factor in a huge number of today’s advertising and marketing campaigns. But just how reliable is the data we glean from social media and how useful is it as a means of understanding the consumer?

March 6, 2013

Cluster's new stand in big data architecture

Traditional enterprise architecture is not suited to big data analytics. Imogen Putler explains alternatives in cluster computing and weighs up the role of Hadoop.

February 22, 2013

New technologies in marketing: at what point does sophisticated become creepy?

As part of our current focus on marketing, Imogen Putler looks into the use of big data and other innovative technologies in this area and examines consumers’ reaction to and tolerance of marketing’s increasingly sophisticated advertising methods.

November 26, 2012

UK social data specialist gets funding boost

The London-based company Likely Limited, which delivers customer insight from social media data, has been given £1m of private equity investment.

November 15, 2012

Big data app development platform gets $10m

Silicon Valley start-up Continuuity obtains invetsment from multiple leading VCs, shortly after announcing big data app development platform.

Silicon Valley-based tech start up Continuuity has announced funding of $10m (£6.3m) from venture capital (VC) firms to back its service which allows developers to quickly and easily build applications on the Hadoop platform.

November 14, 2012

Review: The 4th Big Data Insight Group Forum

A full write-up of yesterday's (Nov 13) fourth and final Big Data Insight Group Forum of the year, with the key advice and quotes from each speaker on the agenda.

Big Data Insight Group held its fourth and final Forum of 2012 yesterday (Nov 13), with more than 100 senior business and IT executives gathering in a central London location to hear from some of the most innovative speakers on the rapidly expanding big data circuit.

October 29, 2012

Big data to create 4.4m jobs - Gartner

As part of its 2013-and-beyond trends predictions, Gartner says 4.4m big data jobs will be create over the next three years - but only a third will be filled.

Analyst company Gartner has revealed its IT predictions for 2013, considering the development and knock-on effects of key market trends including big data, cloud computing, bring your own device (BYOD) and Windows 8.

August 23, 2012

Facebook reveals what it does with big data

The social media giant opened its doors for one day only to explain to a lucky few how it puts its masses of data to good use.

Facebook has shed light on how it uses the huge amounts of big data at its disposal, during a seminar for tech journalists at its Menlo Park headquarters, California yesterday (22 August).

The lucky handful were treated to a presentation by Facebook’s VP of engineering Jay Parikh in which he explained how much data the social media site generates and how the company puts this data to intelligent use.

August 23, 2012

Facebook reveals what it does with big data

The social media giant opened its doors for one day only to explain to a lucky few how it puts its masses of data to good use.

August 10, 2012

London 2012 first big data Olympics

This summer's Games are being hailed as the first ones to truly embrace big data.

August 7, 2012

Big Data Talk 008: Big data - austerity buster

Mark Young thinks big data could be the development which finally allows us to lift our faltering economy. Here’s how.

There’s one thing that practically everyone agrees on when it comes to the economy. To get it moving again, people have to be willing to spend money.

June 29, 2012

Feature: Placing our bets on IT

It is 28 days until the London 2012 Olympics finally get underway. But while athletes undergo final preparation, spectator excitement builds and prices of anything and everything in east London rise, it is the IT which is underpinning the whole event that ought to be the subject of our attention. Dominic Pollard explores.

When the Olympics start next month the focus will be on the stars of track and field and the hunt for a new national hero to rise out of obscurity. However, regardless of how Team GB performs in the medal table, the unsung hero of the Games could well be the IT infrastructure that will be underpinning the world’s biggest sporting event.

June 25, 2012

Big data infographic

The business intelligence company Domo has created an infograhic illustrating how much online activity there is every minute of the day.

One of the key contributors to big data’s rise to prominence is the amount of data gathered and stored from the Internet. With the amount of time people spend online increasing day-by-day, there is masses of data from a wealth of sources from which organisations can capture data.

June 15, 2012

Big Data Talk 005: Big data = big brother?

In an age in which data is collated through our endless interaction with the digital world around us, it can feel like any sense of privacy is rapidly deteriorating. But to what extent does big data mean big brother? Dominic Pollard explores.

A common trend since the emergence of big data has been to draw comparison with the Orwellian dystopia since made into a brain-mushingly poor TV show. Perhaps the ‘big data = big brother’ equation is made more prevalent simply because of the inclusion of the word ‘big’ in both terms. Nevertheless, it is easy to see why there is some validity in the scaremongers’ analogy.

June 14, 2012

Big data in practice - what it's used for sector-by-sector

The breadth and scope of what can be achieved using big data is endless. Here we map the key applications across different industries. This live list will be continually updated.

There are truly no bounds to the scope and breadth of what can be achieved with big data. Here, we detail some of the most prominent applications of big data within leading industries and – where necessary – by job function.

May 28, 2012

Jason Titus, Shazam: Pitch perfect

For a decade now Shazam, the song identification mobile phone app, has been settling bets, discovering new artists and unearthing guilty pleasures for its users. With over a million and half new users each week, the company’s recent growth has been exponential and its big data analytics have opened a range of new possibilities for expansion. Dominic Pollard visited the company’s London headquarters (that’s right, Shazam is a UK company) to speak to its CTO Jason Titus to find out the magic behind the technology.

A magical experience

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Shazam, it’s a mobile app that allows the user to find out the artist and name of any song they hear. Within just a few seconds, that nagging question of ‘oh, what is this song?’ can be answered with one click of a button. As CTO Jason Titus says, “Shazam is like a unique, magical experience.”

March 23, 2012

David Boyle, EMI & Zeebox - Data Driven (includes video)

David Boyle loves data. And, after holding senior insight positions in a wide range of different industries, he’s learnt a few things about the best way to use it. He talks to Mark Young about the importance of partnerships, scalable infrastructure and finding inspiration for data in unusual places. David is senior vice president of insight at EMI and director of insight at zeebox.

David Boyle CV