Big data does not exist. The elephant in the room is that there is no elephant in the room. What’s exciting about data isn’t how much of it there is, but how quickly it is growing. We’re in a persistent state of awe at data’s sheer quantity because of one thing that does not change: There’s always so much more today than yesterday. Size is relative, not absolute. If we use the word big today, we’ll quickly run out of adjectives: “big data,” “bigger data,” “even bigger data,” and “biggest data.” The International Conference on Very Large Databases has been running since 1975. We have a dearth
...more
