The first step to understanding big data is to define it

The first step to understanding big data is to define it. Many people think big data just means a lot of data. That’s only partially true. It is generally accepted that big data “refers to data sets whose size is beyond the ability of typical database software tools to capture, store, manage, and analyze.” Yet, at its core, big data is really about data analytics — sophisticated algorithms that are being applied to incomprehensibly large volumes of data. We create a staggering amount of data each day. For several years, computer scientists have been developing more and more powerful ways to harness the incredible volume of data for all sorts of purposes, such as marketing, medical research and business intelligence. They are figuring how to combine and review these immense data sets together. The result is that they are finding patterns in human conduct and nature that would have never been found without the ability to analyze these large data sets.

Read more here.

Facebook’s groundbreaking news app

Facebook is rolling out a new, stand-alone iPhone app called Paper. But it’s “much more than just a news-reading app—it’s a complete reimagining of Facebook itself.” Paper starts with the regular Facebook News Feed and “re-creates it as an immersive, horizontally scrolling set of screens.” The new app relies on touch gestures “to make every status update, photo, and news story appear full-screen.” By creating Paper as a stand-alone app rather than a new feature bolted onto the flagship, Facebook is embracing today’s trend “toward more, smaller apps.”

Read more at The Week

The Facebook Effect on the News

In the last twelve months, traffic from home pages has dropped significantly across many websites while social media's share of clicks has more than doubled, according to a 2013 review of the BuzzFeed Partner Network, a conglomeration of popular sites including BuzzFeed, the New York Times, and Thought Catalog.

Facebook, in particular, has opened the spigot, with its outbound links to publishers growing from 62 million to 161 million in 2013. Two years ago, Facebook and Google were equal powers in sending clicks to the BuzzFeed network's sites. Today Facebook sends 3.5X more traffic.

Facebook's News Feed, a homepage built by our friends and organized by our clicks and likes, isn't really a "news" feed. It's an entertainment portal for stories that remind us of our lives and offer something like an emotional popper. In fact, news readers self-identify as a minority on Facebook: Fewer than half ever read "news" on the site, according to a 2013 Pew study, and just 10 percent of them go to Facebook to get the news on purpose

Read more at the Atlantic