Impact of Big Data Platforms on the Way People Develop their Identity On and Offline
Human beings produce enormous amounts of information every single day. The amount of data we provide is mind-shuttering. Currently, humans produce 2.5 quintillion bytes of data every day. This pace is not constant as each day that technologies of the Internet of Things evolve; these amounts will only increase. Recently, research conducted found that over the past two years, the information produced is 90 percent the overall amount in the world. Simple activities such as turning to the search engines for answers, we add to the amount of the information already available. Technology has improved the way people store their data. Statistics show that more than 3.7 billion human beings use the internet, which is a growth rate of 7.5% over 2016. Data is produced at a high frequency such that Google alone processes over 40000 searches every second. Doing the math, adding that amount to other searches being done on other platforms, we are now close to the amount of data being produced every day. There are high amounts of data being generated by social media, digital photos being stored, data from the text messages that we send as we communicate, the data from services providers such as weather forecasters, and Uber rides. As of 2006, there were 2 billion smart devices, and it was projected that that number would rise to 200 billion by the time it is 2020. The amount of information and data being produced is so high that the traditional tools can’t handle it. Therefore, big data platforms were created.
Big Data
Big data is described as large data sets that may be analyzed mathematically to produce information in terms of patterns, trends, and associations relating to human behavior and interactions. These data sets are large and complex such that it overwhelms the traditional systems of data processing application software. These large volumes of information could be categorized into structured data, semi-structured and unstructured data. Structured data is data that can be stored accessed and processed in fixed formats. Talents in computer science have achieved much success in deriving data from these structured formats. An example of structured data includes tabled information about employees. Unstructured data is any other data that has unknown forms of structure. This kind of data presents a lot of challenges when it comes to deriving it and analyzing it. An example of unstructured data includes a mixture of data sources containing text files, images, and videos. Organizations in this age have a lot of information, but they experience changes as they cannot derive value from it. The semi-structured data contains both forms of data. An example of such data is data represented in an XML file. It is not the volume of data in big data that matters, but what an organization does with the big data. Big data is analyzed and in an organization for better insights that can lead to better decision making and the making of strategic moves in the business.
Importance of Big Data
For a company to grow, it has to be efficient in its ability to deduce data and produce valuable information. A company can get data from a source, analyze it to provide information that will help it cut the cost being used up. Saving costs can help the company produce more and save more. Big data analytics, such as the Hadoop and Cloudera, can be used to analyze data stored and find more cost-efficient ways of doing business. Furthermore, these tools are high speed, and use in-memory analytics to find new sources of information, analyze the data to create time reductions in decision making. In addition to analyzing big data helps in a better understanding of the market conditions by the business. These tools analyze the consumer purchasing behavior, and therefore, a company can find out the products the consumers buy the most and make products to fit the trend. Another importance of big data and analytics is that they control the online reputation. Through big data analytics, which does sentiment analysis, it is easy for a business owner to know what said about their business. This tool can monitor online presence.
Moreover, when one uses big data analytics, it can boost customer acquisition and retention. The big data analytics use the valuable data from the customer’s pattern and trends to understand what the customer loves and then offering that in a better way creating a better experience for the customer and, in the long run, a solid customer base for the customer. Big data analytics eventually drives innovations and also product development in companies.
Big data platforms
Big data has become a big deal in the business industry and life generally. Due to the amounts of data being produced in the world over per second, it is crucial to harness the data and derive valuable information from it. Big data presents opportunities for businesses to grow by understanding the customer better. It also helps with the management of a business. Therefore, various platforms have arisen as a result of this niche. Platforms have been created to analyze these massive data faster and accurately. These platforms include Apache Hadoop, Cloudera, Microsoft azure, gridgrain, Spacecurve, storm, amazon. Apache Hadoop and Cloudera are two platforms that will be focused on this paper. Importance of big data platforms. Some platforms are used in specific sites such as storm is being used by Twitter.
Apache Hadoop traces its origin in 2003 from two founders; Doug Cutting and Mike Cafarella. The idea came from a paper published in 2003; then, the project started on the Apache Nutch, which was later shifted to the new Hadoop subproject in 2006. The initial code consisted of 5000 lines of codes of HDFS and about 6000 lines of code of MapReduce. The first project was produced in April 2006, and since then, it has evolved. Today, Apache Hadoop is a collection of open-source software factors that enhances the usage of many computer networks in the computation of vast amounts of data to solve complex problems. The Apache Hadoop is an analytical tool that, within its software framework, it provides storage for big data. It uses the MapReduce programming model. The software has been created in such a way that it understands that malfunction is a common occurrence, and it is its responsibility to fix the issue. The software splits files into large blocks and then distributes them into nodes in the cluster, after which it transfers packaged codes into nodes to process the data.
Cloudera
Unlike Apache Hadoop, which sources from the Apache group, Cloudera sources from Apache Hadoop. Cloudera offers a scalable, agile, integrated platform to businesses that makes management of large and variety of data easy and quick.
Construction of public and personal profiles offline and online
Individual people shape their digital identities both offline and online. Since the past decade, mobile phones, computers and the internet have become an integral part of the people’s lives. They have since formed online communities. Identity weaving in the online world has been very important because it dictates the social value of a person and how a person is perceived. Besides, depending on the identity, one is put in a particular social class and group. Online profiling is virtual and happens over a computer-based device. This is made possible via the social media platforms. The offline profiling happens in reality over face to face. Offline identities are usually raw. They are never edited. It is how people know each other in person. Their real liking dislikes and how they live in real life builds the offline profile. In the social media sites, individuals shape their identities by giving information to people about themselves. These sites include the social media platforms. People have a lot of information at their fingertips and in every second someone is uploading information about themselves, or something they relate or that they like. There are various platforms that people use construct information about themselves. These sites work in such a way that it provides a way for people to customize their identities according to their liking and with these they can introduce the aspects about themselves that they like. Many at times people do not understand the terms and the processes by which they use to shape their identity and they are therefore not aware of the privacy issues. Individual construct their profiles knowingly because they take it as a hobby. The digital characters can be built from how a person makes their online purchases. Somebody’s profile can be constructed simply by what they search on Google the most. People could be constructing their identities, both online and offline without their knowledge due to the big data analytics tools.
The impact of big data platforms
The big data platform is a one-stop solution that handles large sets of data to produce meaningful information. Enterprises use these tools for various reasons. These vast amounts of data are coming from the people who use products o line. It could be a simple game that is played online. It could be a download of the software. It could be an online search for a piece of specific information or product. Data from various platforms is computed and analyzed the platforms to give a profile of what a person would enjoy or like. This information is useful to businesses as they can cut costs trying to research their customer’s buying behavior. Big data platforms, however, in some way, infringe on the privacy of people.
Big data has impacted different industries, such as targeted advertising, education, healthcare, insurance, manufacturing, and banking. All these areas are aspects that people interact with every single day. When people feed information online about their status, there is a profile that they create virtually without knowing. This information entails a person, and it can be used to tell what kind of person they are, the problems that they are undergoing, the issues they want to settle, or the product that they might need. With big data analytics, it summons information from various sources that the person might have searched and provided tailor-made solutions for them to apply or order readily.
Many people can try to develop an online profile that is different from reality, but once in a while, they will need something online. These data are summoned and used. There have arisen the issues of privacy following the uprise of big data tools. However, it has been argued that the devices are a necessary evil. From the information about insurance, people can be able to get precisely the product that they need. Moreover, in case the product does not exist, big data analytics will inform the concerned party where they are going to develop the product. This is again to the customer as they will be able to get access to what they need. On the other hand, big data platforms are used in education. When an individual is trying to learn something, the information they will get as they search will relate to what they want. This happens due to the online identities field by the people.
Big data platforms impact the lives of people in various ways. It has affected the way people construct their identities in social media platforms. When filling information about themselves in they understand that they consent to little privacy infringement, which is eventually beneficial to them. They get customized products courtesy of big data platforms that profile their needs and bring to the information and services that they need. The direction and speed of the technological revolution is making big data platforms relevant at the kind of rate human beings produce data