Statistics For Big Data For Dummies

Welcome to Statistics For Big Data For Dummies! Every day, what has come to be
known as big data is making its influence felt in our lives. Some of the most useful
innovations of the past 20 years have been made possible by the advent of massive
data-gathering capabilities combined with rapidly improving computer technology.
For example, of course, we have become accustomed to finding almost any information
we need through the Internet. You can locate nearly anything under the sun
immediately by using a search engine such as Google or DuckDuckGo. Finding
information this way has become so commonplace that Google has slowly become a
verb, as in “I don’t know where to find that restaurant — I’ll just Google it.” Just think
how much more efficient our lives have become as a result of search engines. But how
does Google work? Google couldn’t exist without the ability to process massive
quantities of information at an extremely rapid speed, and its software has to be
extremely efficient.
Another area that has changed our lives forever is e-commerce, of which the classic
example is Amazon.com. People can buy virtually every product they use in their daily
lives online (and have it delivered promptly, too). Often online prices are lower than in
traditional “brick-and-mortar” stores, and the range of choices is wider. Online
shopping also lets people find the best available items at the lowest possible prices.
Another huge advantage to online shopping is the ability of the sellers to provide
reviews of products and recommendations for future purchases. Reviews from other
shoppers can give extremely important information that isn’t available from a simple
product description provided by manufacturers. And recommendations for future
purchases are a great way for consumers to find new products that they might not
otherwise have known about. Recommendations are enabled by one application of big
data — the use of highly sophisticated programs that analyze shopping data and
identify items that tend to be purchased by the same consumers.
Although online shopping is now second nature for many consumers, the reality is that
e-commerce has only come into its own in the last 15–20 years, largely thanks to the
rise of big data. A website such as Amazon.com must process quantities of information
that would have been unthinkably gigantic just a few years ago, and that processing
must be done quickly and efficiently. Thanks to rapidly improving technology, many
traditional retailers now also offer the option of making purchases online; failure to do
so would put a retailer at a huge competitive disadvantage.
In addition to search engines and e-commerce, big data is making a major impact in a
surprising number of other areas that affect our daily lives:
Social media
Online auction sites
Insurance
Healthcare
Energy
Political polling
Weather forecasting
Education
Travel
Finance