Too Big to Ignore - The Business Case for Big Data

Too Big to Ignore, The Business Case for Big Data--------------------------------------------------Residents in Boston, Massachusetts are automatically reporting potholesand road hazards via their smartphones. Progressive Insurance tracksreal-time customer driving patterns and uses that information to offerrates truly commensurate with individual safety. Google accuratelypredicts local flu outbreaks based upon thousands of user search queries.Amazon provides remarkably insightful, relevant, and timely productrecommendations to its hundreds of millions of customers. Quantcastlets companies target precise audiences and key demographics throughoutthe Web. NASA runs contests via gamification site TopCoder, awardingprizes to those with the most innovative and cost-effective solutionsto its problems. Explorys offers penetrating and previously unknowninsights into healthcare behavior. How do these organizations andmunicipalities do it? Technology is certainly a big part, but in eachcase the answer lies deeper than that. Individuals at these organizationshave realized that they don't have to be Nate Silver to reap massive" benefits from today's new and emerging types of data.