Practical Big Data Analytics

Sources of big data

Technology today allows us to collect data at an astounding rate--both in terms of volume and variety. There are various sources that generate data, but in the context of big data, the primary sources are as follows:

• Social networks: Arguably, the primary source of all big data that we know of today is the social networks that have proliferated over the past 5-10 years. This is by and large unstructured data that is represented by millions of social media postings and other data that is generated on a second-by-second basis through user interactions on the web across the world. Increase in access to the internet across the world has been a self-fulfilling act for the growth of data in social networks.

• Media: Largely ...