KCB206 2014 Tutorial Group 15

Big data is a popular term used to describe the growth and availability of data which can be gathered as both structured and unstructured sets. Big Data is a currency across various large growth industries such as hard science, social sciences, business and marketing.

source: http://machimon.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/atime_data_mining.jpg

Social media is now more than ever increasingly playing an important role in television; playing a key role in the promotion of upcoming shows, being utilised for on-air interactions with the audience across a variety of genres, and also as a tool for measuring the success of a show, at least with the audience segment which social media represents (Woodford, Prowd and Bruns, 2014).

A programme that is trending on Twitter is increasingly a currency of success or failure (Bucklet, 2011). “The influence of the twitter sphere can disproportionately impact on a show, so if there is a torrent of abuse, or the other way around, a torrent of love, that shines a spotlight that is definitely a factor in commissioning meetings” (Nelson, 2011).

The data mined from telelmetrics, generates not only publicity for the program or application but also determines its success. Rather than taking out billboards, television commercials or other traditional means of advertising, business and are now using Twitter audiences to advertise for them on trends and audience reactions. This is a very valuable marketing technique for these companies. Similarly, liking their Facebook page or a photo shares that information with a portion of your Facebook friends. Ultimately, this is effectively free promotion and advertising and Darryl Woodford (2014) classifies this as a cycle of free advertising. The more people see it and that cycle continues on and on and you end up with this kind of vitality of marketing plus creating new data to be mined, stored and analysed.

There are three V’s as to how Big Data is measured are volume, variety and velocity. The combination of these there give developers and marketers the ability to almost predict the future of a product or the current trends people are sharing and displaying on social media.: Many factors contribute to the increase in data volume. Transaction-based data stored through the years. Unstructured data streaming in from social media. Increasing amounts of sensor and machine-to-machine data being collected. This was the early workings of our modern day internet.

Doug Laney currently describes the 3 Vs as follows: Volume: Many factors contribute to the increase in data volume. Transaction-based data stored through the years. Unstructured data streaming in from social media. Increasing amounts of sensor and machine-to-machine data being collected. Value of data continues to grow, current systems won’t keep pace.

Velocity: Data is streaming in at unprecedented speed and must be dealt with in a timely manner. Data is emerging as the world’s newest resource for competitive advantage.

And variety : Data today comes in various and changing formats. Structured, numeric data in traditional databases. The variety effects decision making

References:

http://www.ibm.com/big-data/us/en/ - viewed 11/05/2014

Davenport  T.H. and Dyche J, “Big Data in Big Companies,” May 2013

Woodford, D., Prowd, K. and Bruns, A. (2014). Telemetrics: Towards Measuring Social Media Engagement with Television. [PDF] Available at: http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/bbcswebdav/pid-5234702-dt-content-rid-2118244_1/courses/KCB206_14se1/Woodford%2C%20Prowd%20and%20Bruns%20%20Telemetrics%20Towards%20Measuring%20Social%20Media%20Engagement%20with%20Television.pdf [Accessed 6 May. 2014].

Law and the internet. These two concepts seem to constantly be at loggerheads. While the law has traditionally been (in theory) a black and white, right and wrong system, when applied to the internet we are constantly left with shades of grey. The technology of the last few decades has evolved so rapidly that laws all around the world have failed to keep up, and we are regularly seeing cases where the boundaries of new media are being tested, and new precedents are being set.

In March this year, an Australian judge ordered a New South Wales man to pay $105,000 in damages to his former teacher for defaming her in Twitter (Whitbourn, 2014). This was the first ruling of its kind relating to Twitter in Australia, and has set a powerful precedent for future social media defamation cases.  Many people today use social media to vent their frustrations, like people have used diaries or talking to their friends in the past. Now, however, comments that you make when you’re simply having a bad day have the potential to be seen by millions of people. They are also permanently stored in the great data collection of the internet. Should new laws be created to reflect this? If a person has a temporary lapse in judgement, and writes a stupid post on Facebook or Twitter complaining about their job, do they deserve to be fired? Well, that’s what happened to Joe Lobato from Denver, U.S.A (9news, 2013). Of course you can say that people should realise how public their posts are going to be, and be more careful about what they are putting on social media. Everyone has a point where they get annoyed and make a bad decision, however, and whether a lapse in judgement should be enough to get you fired, or sued, is an important question that the current laws are finding it hard to answer.

Another big question is how this tumultuous relationship bwtween law and new media will affect teenagers. In January of this year, a 17 year-old girl in Canada was convicted of distributing child pornography when she sent explicit texts of another underage girl to her friends (Meissener, 2014). This practice is, of course, also illegal in Australia. A study conducted this year found that over a quarter of Australian 16-18 year olds had sent a sexually explicit photo (ABC, 2014), so should all of these teenagers be charged? Even if it was a photo of themselves? The laws around child pornography have every right to be tough, but we all know teenagers don’t make the best decisions. And with ‘sexting’ seemingly becoming an almost normal part of modern day courtship for the younger generation, these laws are something that need to be looked in to.

The law and new media obviously do not work perfectly together. With the long and arduous task of changing laws, and the rapidly changing technologies supporting new media, they probably never will. However, unless we want teenagers having life-altering criminal charges hanging over their heads, this is something that has to be addressed.

  References:

Meissener, Dirk. 2014. “Sexting B.C. teen found guilty of child pornography.” Accessed May 18, 2014. http://bc.ctvnews.ca/sexting-b-c-teen-found-guilty-of-child-pornography-1.1633678

Whitbourn, Michaela. 2014. “The tweet that cost $105,000.” Accessed May 18, 2014. http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/the-tweet-that-cost-105000-20140305-341kl.html

9news staff. 2014. “Denver man fired for complaining on Facebook.” Accessed May 18, 2014. http://www.9news.com/story/news/local/9news-evenings/2014/02/25/1859218/

This week, also known as the ‘Topic I Did My Oral Presentation On’ week, we discussed New Media Enterprises, which covered how new media affects the work environment. We also had many different discussions about Jonathan Zittrain’s Minds for Sale lecture, in which he talked about how companies and people, like him, are utilising or have utilised every day people to do menial tasks for them for a prize, or sometimes for basically nothing at all. 

Having watched Zittrain’s entire lecture, I found myself immersed in what he was saying. Cloud Labor is something I had never heard of prior to watching the lecture, so I was surprised to find out what it is, and that people actually participate in these things. 

The way he described it is that there’s a pyramid scale, like so, 

and as you can see from the scale, the higher the prize, is equal to how much participation and skill you can expect to receive from the participant. He then shows a pyramid which coincides with this theory and explains what’s on the top of the pyramid, all the way down to the bottom of the pyramid. 

At the top of the pyramid, Zittrain has put the X Prize Foundation, which is a non-for-profit  organisation that holds competitions in which the outcome would benefit human society. One of the competitions that he uses as an example in the lecture is one in which the participants had to create a eco-friendly vehicle that could go up into space and back down again. Obviously, only major companies could possibly participate in these kinds of compeititions considering the resources the average person would need. The reason these companies would go out on a limb to participate is because the prizes are so high - in the millions of dollars range. 

On the bottom of the pyramid was Google. According to Zittrain, people actually give up their privacy in order to let Google monitor every single search they make on the search engine. The benefit of this is that they can collect the data and use it to figure out what is trending in what areas of the globe. For example, people googling ‘flu symptoms’ will determine where people are getting the flu the most and at what time of the year. 

I tried to think of cloud labor I had witnessed or come across in my own time on the internet but couldn’t think of anything, except for surveys that people do for money. Surveys for money are something that are among poor university students like myself, but also just anyone who is looking to make some extra cash on the side. What happens is, you do a few surveys through a company, they extract the data and use it for what was intended, and the participant gets some points for doing this. Sounds easy right?

Not quite. According to the reviews on the Facebook page of one of these survey companies, people are outraged at just how long they’ve had to spend on these surveys just to get a measly amount of points towards their goal. Some people claim they’ve spent up to five hours on a single survey, which seems pretty crazy to me.

In week 3, we discussed creating new media content online. What caught my attention was the required reading of Joshua Green and Henry Jenkins’ (2011) ‘Spreadable Media’, in which they discussed the spreadability of content and what makes content go viral in the hands of the consumers.

You can never force something to go viral, because according to the aforementioned ‘Spreadable Media’ reading, consumers don’t like content being figuratively shoved down their throats. For content to go viral, it has to be discovered first. Even if it’s by just a few people, these people will share this content around and soon you’ll be seeing parodies of it on YouTube or it’ll be referenced in pop culture TV. 

An example of this is the First Kiss video, which has had over 82 million views since it was first uploaded in March. 

  There is nothing not to love about this video - attractive people playing out a social experiment, giggling bashfully in strangers’ arms - who wouldn’t love that?

Well, apparently quite a lot of people. Despite all its praise, the video also recieved backlash from the general public. Being an avid Tumblr user, I was constantly online at the time of this video’s peak, and I came across many posts by angered users about this video. The main reason was because the video creators only hired ‘attractive’ people, put it in black and white, cut out all the ugly kissing noises and made it look like an e-harmony ad. It also turns out that the ad was actually for a clothing company, which people weren’t too happy about - as if it’s the first time they’ve been subliminally messaged. 

This, in turn, inspired other content creators to make a new first kiss video - this time with ‘real’ people. 

The video above is Vice’s rendition of the viral video First Kiss, in which they included a title slide which reads “We paid 20 strangers - who definitely aren’t super confident, hot american models - to kiss for the first time.” This video has almost reached a million views since March, which is considerably less than the original, but was actually real. 

Since then, there have been even more parodies or other renditions of the idea, including “First Gay Hug” and real life kissing experiments in public. This just goes to show how the spreadability of one single video can create a whole bunch of new content on the web for people to see. This is how ‘memes’ are created, also. From people taking memes like this one: 

In week 1 and 2, the topics covered were about blurring the lines between what we share to the public and what we prefer to keep quiet. In this modern society, it’s becoming more and more apparent that there is a subculture of social media fast approaching and it’s not slowing down. Nowadays, it’s more common to say “can I add you on Facebook?” rather than “can I have your number?”, and “i don’t know this person, should i just add them as a friend anyway?” is now a common statement heard amongst friends. Despite having hundreds of friends, acquaintances, family members and even strangers on these social media websites, most of us still aren’t wary about what we decide to share with these people. 

Erika Pearson (2009) describes social media as a glass bedroom, in the way that we publicly share our deepest thoughts and private moments on social media websites for all to see. I completely agree with this statement, however, don’t necessarily think it’s as bad or as dangerous as it sounds.

People can share what they like, but common sense plays a big role in relation to this topic, and if you pick and choose wisely what you share on which social media platform, you aren’t in danger of revealing too much. An example of bad common sense on social media would be using Facebook’s “check-in” feature - which is public to all Facebook friends - to check in to your own house, street address and all.

Another thing is the Instagram check-in feature, which people use to show where they are at the time of taking the picture. Which this video demonstrates as being quite problematic in a way.

But the main concern is that people do things just to share it with their friends. That we can’t do something fun without saying “hold on, let me take a photo for instagram.” That we can’t enjoy something without wanting to boast about it to our acquaintances to show them how much fun we’re having - or pretending to have. 

The video that Theresa showed in the lecture describes this movement perfectly:

  The most disturbing thing about this is the fact that there are massive lines, just to post something on Facebook. These people paid their hard earned money, but can’t properly enjoy it because they are in a line to prove to people how much fun they’re having.

We live in a world where almost everything constitutes as copyright. Most moneymaking ideas have already been thought of and belong to someone else, but the copyright laws and regulations remain far short of satisfactory in this time of technological advancement and piracy worldwide. So how did such a temperament come to occur, and what can we do to solve its intrinsic issues? We will delve into this, and more, in our quest for answers.

I would like to start by telling you a story. It’s about a woman whose thirteen year old month baby danced in front of her and ended up in her twenty nine second home video, which she put on YouTube. However because the barely audible 'Let’s go crazy' song by Prince was being played in the background, the Universal Music Group were able to sue her under the copyright infringement act for up to one hundred and fifty thousand U.S. dollars (Lessig 2008). This ridiculous scenario draws attention towards just how outdated copyright infringement laws currently are. Flew (2014, 193) corroborates this by stating that “the changing digital media environment requires a reassessment of the underlying principles of copyright law”.

This highlights a serious flaw in all online content related industries, which is that it is more convenient for consumers to steal than it is to make legitimate purchases. This happens left right and centre to a lot of people very often. The vast majority’s use of social media is intrinsic to copyright infringement, as exemplified through viral parodies of music videos including Seth Rogen and James Franco’s spoof of Kanye West’s bound 2 video clip. We live in a piracy geared society (Flew 2014, 191). The risks associated in piracy do not seem to concern many consumers of content, as it has ingrained itself as a common practice. In response to this, companies along the likes of Netflix have emerged. Netflix’s nature of business is so cheap and so convenient that the company is able to strongly compel content consumers to make legitimate purchases rather than pirating (Sahagian 2013). Netflix is competed with by similar companies in this respect including Amazon, and is paralleled in other industries, as highlighted by Spotify’s central role in the commercial market of music. This reflects hope for the future, but also indicates that vast change needs to occur to reach such a future.

In his captivating video, Ferguson (2012) depicts how the evolution of ideas and society are conflicting, as new ideas evolve from ideas that already exist, as evidenced by the replications surrounding Ray Charles’ music discussed in the video. However by placing ownership and copyright on ideas, society is blocking this process. The main discourse throughout the video is that the economically driven process of ‘owning ideas’ inhibits creative evolution, as morphed versions of old ideas, adapted to new contexts in new ways, is how the evolution of ideas has occurred for thousands of years. And I couldn’t agree more. There is a need for change in the blockages of idea evolution, and the outdated and ineffective copyright infringement laws (Ferguson 2012).

Reference List

Ferguson, Kirby. 2012. “Everything is a Remix Part 4.” Vimeo video, posted 2012. Accessed May 2, 2014. http://vimeo.com/36881035

Flew, Terry. 2014. New Media. South Melbourne: Oxford University Press. Accessed May 2, 2014. https://qutvirtual3.qut.edu.au/qv/cmd_common_p.show_item?p_item_id=212874

Lessig, Lawrence. 2008. “In Defense of Piracy.” The Wall Street Journal, October 11. Accessed May 2, 2014. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB122367645363324303

In today’s world, computing technology has reached levels that, not that long ago, were only mentioned in science fiction. Due to the ever increasing power of computers; data and statistics are able to be collected and analysed in a matter of seconds, allowing organisations to execute strategies and increase productivity; from marketing ploys to staff management. Big data, telemetrics and predictive analytics have transformed the way the majority of contemporary organisations do business, “from the front end of stores to the upper levels of management” (Woodward, 2014). In this blog I would like to discuss how big data and new media have influenced the business of sport, both commercially and from a fans perspective.

The author of Moneyball, Michael Lewis, states in Siegel (2013, 11) that when “people operate with beliefs and biases to the extent you can eliminate both and replace them with data, you gain a clear advantage.” Whereas in years gone by young players were chosen to represent teams purely at the discretion of a coaches instinct, the professionalism of sports now demands young players be subjected to rigorous athletic testing, with every result collated and analysed to the nth degree. These results are then compared to data from as long as 15 years ago in order to gain an understanding of a prospective players ability. Therefore, predictive analytics “actually learns more about your next likely action by studying others than by studying you” (Siegel 2013, 15). Brousell (2014) further explains that once in the professional sporting arena, data from wearable technologies can help in the rest and recovery of players, as well as identify and increase the productivity of the athletes.

Predictive analytics is defined by Siegel (2014, 11) as “technology that learns from experience (data) to predict the future behaviour of individuals in order to drive better decisions.” In Australian sports, Champion Data is the leading sporting data and analytics company. Each team and individual is rated every time he or she performs, and certain predictions are made before each match or even season. This data enables fans to further engage with games and allows online social competitions such as “fantasy football.”

“In sports, analytics means not just performance on the field but also the marketing required to fill stadiums by retaining season-ticket holders and attracting new fans” (Bluey, 2013). Recently, the Australian Football League came under heavy scrutiny via social media as a result of suspending a player (Jack Viney) that was seen by the majority as acting in the spirit of the game. The hashtag #freeviney quickly began trending nationwide, clearly exhibiting the fans displeasure at the League. The AFL was then persuaded to appeal the decision and Jack Viney was cleared to play, exhibiting Brousell’s (2014) argument that “analytics can advance the sports fans experience – the better they (the sporting organisation) knows their fans, the better they can cater to them.” Data is also collected on other issues of concern to fans, which can then be on sold to organisations to increase marketing or public relations.   

REFERENCES:

Siegel, Eric. 2013. “Introduction : The Prediction Effect.” In Predictive analytics : the power to predict who will click, buy, lie, or die, edited by Eric Siegel, 1–16. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Bluey, Rob. 2013. “From ‘Moneyball’ to money bombs: What sports analytics can teach political nerds.” The Atlantic, March 8. Accessed May 9, 2014. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/03/from-moneyball-to-money-bombs-what-sports-analytics-can-teach-political-nerds/273824/

Brousell, Lauren. 2014. “8 Ways Big Data and Analystics Will Change Sport.” CIO, March 13. Accessed May 9, 2014. http://www.cio.com/article/749650/8_Ways_Big_Data_and_Analytics_Will_Change_Sports

 “Jack Vineys two week suspension sends football community into social media meltdown.” Herald Sun, May 7, 2014. Accessed May 9, 2014. http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/the-fallout-from-jack-vineys-twoweek-suspension-sends-football-community-into-social-media-meltdown/story-fni5f91a-1226907937769

McFarlane, Glenn. 2013. “Champion data list analysis has reigning AFL premiers Hawthorn ahead of the pack.” Herald Sun, December 7. Accessed May 9, 2014. http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/champion-data-list-analysis-has-reigning-afl-premiers-hawthorn-ahead-of-the-pack/story-fni5f8ge-1226777876749   

Siegel, Eric. 2013. “Introduction : The Prediction Effect.” In Predictive analytics : the power to predict who will click, buy, lie, or die, edited by Eric Siegel, 1–16. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Image Source From: http://www.ratelinx.com/portfolio/ocean-of-data/ This week lecture has taught us a really big content and I can hardly discuss “big data” individually as big data is everywhere such as business, science, government, health care, social media etc (Handsonerp 2013). Big data is covering in all aspects of our life. As Anthony mentioned in his 5mins review, whenever we click on a website, press a “like” or purchases via Internet, we are contributing the process of make a big data. Nobody can get rid of participating in big data generation, whenever a text message, photos, images, emails, audios and many other daily deeds can be treaded as big data. Every time we show our loyalty card, in fact we are helping generate a retailer database and give them bunch of data to understand better the customer behaviour and it is a kind of research that happens everywhere. Besides, whenever you touch on your go card and you just generated a piece of data to Translink, hence, big data is crossing all industries and we cannot image how big it actually is. Apart from the real life, we did similar things or more via Internet or social media because big data is generating fast and fast in many sectors. And many companies place premium focus on these data as big data is treaded as challenges and opportunities, which do help them to run a business in a better way. The example which I mentioned in week5 blog post might show how big data work in TV programs. By offering twitter to audience to raise question for the program, is exactly one of the way of producing big data, and it help not only the quality of the tv program but also can enhance the engagement towards the audience. Therefore, big data is developing in very high speed now because it is a form of new way to understand the world and it help produce better product or service after analysing.

In Piled Higher and Deeper YouTube video (2013) states that information is over-abundant via the booming of big data, and there are bunch of possible risk for users as this global access action. The Economist YouTube video (2012) reveals that 72% percent of privacy policies that allow third parties to track internet activity, in order words, we are being stalked and have no privacy at all even there is a privacy setting system. Just like Olivia says in the comment on my last blog post, sharing things in Internet is kind of dangerous, as we can never guarantee 100% of deleted in digital world, what’s more in this spreadability new media industry. As we simply taking a photo, we might generate a data of location via the GPS system, therefore, we cannot deny that big data is generated every second hugely by everybody. And is the fact scaring you? I am freak out to the fact behind big data, but I am not a famous as celebrity or president, I would stop using social media and don’t mind being a contributor to big data at this moment. But for sure, I do raised awareness from this week lecture and it remind me once again we are always inside this full glass of bedroom and many eyes around. P.s These two video below is worth-watching to understand big data.

Reference List: ExplainingComputers. 2012 “Explaining Big Data.” YouTube video, posted June 16. Accessed May 8, 2014.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7D1CQ_LOizA Hansonerp. 2013 “What is Big Data?” YouTube video, posted April 7. Accessed May 8, 2014 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlaJsseTgk4

Piled Higher and Deeper (PHD Comics). 2013 “Big Data + Old History.” YouTube video, posted September 6. Accessed May 8, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tp4y-_VoXdA

Sauter, Theresa. 2014. “New Media Policy, Law and Governance: Week 7 lectures notes.” Accessed May 3, 2014.http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_4_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fcontent%2FlistContent.jsp%3Fcourse_id%3D_108110_1%26content_id%3D_5232444_1

TedxTalks. 2013 “Big Data, Small World: Kirk Borne at TEDxGeorgeMasonU.” YouTube video, posted June 10. Accessed May 8, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zr02fMBfuRA

The Economist. 2012. “The dark side of big data.” YouTube video, posted June 26. Accessed May 8, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raJOkguPrH4

The Economist. 2012. “What is big data?” YouTube video, posted June 26. Accessed May 8, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahZGEusG13A

We generate data everyday. From posting hashtags in Twitter or Instagram, to shopping in Coles, we help to add content in a discussion and record our shopping habits in supermarket. The YouTube video showed by Darryl in his lecture mentioned the reason why the data is continuously getting bigger is that data has been generated from more sources and more devices, also it is because billions of records have been digitized online. It forms a big database for analytics in business intelligence and data markets (Darryl 2014). For me, I used to think the big data is only benefit to the businesses, but I found that big data could even put an effort on driven better patient care. Healthcare organizations use big data to fins better treatment for patients through genomic sequencing technologies (Diana 2014). Also, it can capture all of the information about a patient to get a more complete view for insight into care coordination for the doctor.

  However, in other hand, big data has a tight connection and relationship between privacy and crowdsourcing. Big data is the term for a collection of data in different ways in daily life, but it does raise a concern of privacy.

Dilbert on Big Data and Cloud Jargon Image sourced from: http://www.pinterest.com/telcostatsgrrl/ict-humor/

For example, your electric company can see what time do you come home at night, online shopping website can know your interest in purchase. Moreover, the targeting of advertising is based upon your prior online activity. According to Gerstein and Simon (2014), “they are quietly track, log and analyze our every move.” Especially for those companies who see big profits in big data are not that care much about the information privacy. Although the data have been collected are just something not that important, it is good for us to know we are all being record everyday and remind us to be careful with what we generate.

  Growing your business with crowdsourcing Crowdsourcing organization Image sourced from: http://www.crowdsourcing.org/editorial/growing-your-business-with-crowdsourcing/23054

Also, the crowdsourcing is one of the ways that help generating big data. Sometimes they are working together to develop new possibilities for researchers and consumers. Using Google as an example, the Google image labeller was a sort of game to ask users to label pictures so as to improve search results. Also Google competed its maps of North Korea by the help of citizen cartographers. Therefore we can see that Google is using the power of crowdsourcing to collect the resources in order to build up and generate a database for its company. Besides, it is leading to a problem of unwaged labor as well. Yet, it is no doubt that Google provided a big database and resources for us to research anything we want to know, without it, I cannot get my assignment done as well.

Everything always has double side, it depends how you look at it in your own perspective, but I usually like to see the both side of one issue in order to get a bigger picture so as to have my own critical thinking. How about you?

    Reference

Diana, Alison. 2014. “Healthcare Dives into Big Data.” Information Week Health Care, May 14. Accessed May 10, 2014. http://www.informationweek.com/healthcare/analytics/healthcare-dives-into-big-data/d/d-id/1251138

Gerstein J. and Simon S. 2014. “Who watches the watchers? Big Data goes unchecked.” POLITICO, May 14. Accessed May 10, 2014. http://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/big-data-beyond-the-nsa-106653.html

Piled Higher and Deeper (PHD Comics). 2013. “ Big Data + Old History.” YouTube cideo, posted September 6. Accessed May 9, 2014.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=tp4y-_VoXdA

According to the CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt, the amount of data that humans created since the beginning of civilisation through to 2003 is now being produced every two days (Siegler, 2010). To many, including myself, this concept is frightening to say the least. However, to giant global companies and governments, big data presents a world of opportunity. 

Big data is gathered and analysed with several purposes, the most interesting of which is what’s called predictive analytics. This is when data is mined and analysed in order to create predictions of outcomes for the future or otherwise unknown events, including elections or trends in the stock market. 

As well as predicting the outcomes of economic and political events, the mass amounts of data mined from social media sites can be used to predict events and trends in popular culture. At this very moment, the hash tags #eurovision, #sbseurovision and #joinus are trending globally on Facebook, tumblr and twitter. This is due to the grand final of the Eurovision Song Contest, a massive competition that involves every European country, which took place this weekend. Each country must select a band or musician to represent them with a song written specifically for the competition. Eurovision has been running for 59 consecutive years and although it only involves European countries its eccentric and outlandish nature has attracted a global following. This year’s winner Conchita Wurst, a bearded lady from Austria, has captured the hearts of many and gained an immense social media following. 

Data pertaining specifically to the Eurovision Song Contest can be collated using the hash tags, which additionally prompt audience members to participate in and fuel further discussion. Surveying the data from these tags gives audience members an idea as to which performers are most popular, and gives hosting countries and advertisers clues as to how they can improve the monetisation and ratings of future broadcasts. In addition to this, the hash tags tap into the notion of participatory culture frequently discussed in our lectures and tutorials, particularly the tag #joinus which was the slogan for this year’s competition. The interval act for last night’s semi final was a Eurovision dance, comprised of audience members who had posted videos of themselves dancing and tagged them. The dancers in the most popular videos were flown out to Denmark where the competition was held, to perform their moves on stage in front of the live stadium audience. 

References

Eurovision TV. 2014. “Eurovison #JoinUs Dance”. YouTube video, posted May 10. Accessed May 11, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rV7n3tLKHSk

Siegler, MG. 2010. “Eric Schmidt: Every 2 Days We Create As Much Information As We Did Up To 2003”. Accessed May 11, 2014.http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/04/schmidt-data/

Big Data. Telemetrics. These terms are daunting not just because they sound like they come from a dystopian sci-fi movie set in the distant future, but also because of what they represent. Philosophically, I feel humbled by the fact that my clicking and typing can be reduced to a few bytes of data and sold for real money to advertisers. I can’t help but be a little concerned with how easy it is for the world to have access to such a vast array of information about me, and so accurate! Yes I do want to see that suggested video, well done Youtube, you know what I do like Pringles, thanks Facebook. Although I could go without the suggested dating sites, yeah I’m single, stop reminding me.

When I use New Media, especially social networking sites, Youtube and such, I don’t feel like I am putting all that much about myself out there. I don’t write posts that often, comment rarely and I am by no means a frivolous liker. It is because of this that I absolutely marvel at some of the advertising I am bombarded with, especially on Facebook. Sometimes I will look at an ad and just try to figure out exactly what it was that I did to see this particular one. Just look at how hard this lady had to try to keep her personal life personal. It’s easier to keep track on Youtube, the “Recommended” videos all make sense and directly relate to what I’ve seen before. Since learning more about big data I have been more conscious of some of the more subtle ways it effects my usage of new media. For example my favourite comedy article and video site Cracked.com will keep me procrastinating for hours with its incredibly accurate prediction of what I’ll want to see next. In fact it now doesn’t even bother to ask if I want to watch the next video, it just gives me a 5 second countdown then on to the next one I go, and if that trend continues to even more extremes I wonder where we could get to in the future… I’m not a big online shopper but the couple of sites I might browse very irregularly even know what I want. I believe it is well within the realms of possibility that the analysis of all of this data will get so accurate that we, the consumer, will be able to put our trust in these programs to go ahead and buy the stuff for us anyway. In the future why bother with the ads, just bypass them and take me straight to the checkout, software will know me so well it can make my wardrobe decisions for me. Maybe even take a peek into my bank account, work out a budget, and get me a surprise gift ever now and then of exactly what I want. It’ll save me tons of time, which I can spend watching even more cats do cute and funny things for way too many hours.

In the not-so-distant future it also occurred to me that with the introduction of Hoyts streaming service (similar to Netflix) to our homes here in Australia we won’t have to think too much about what TV show or movie we want to see next. Undoubtedly it’ll programmed to suggest similar things to what we’ve seen before and with great accuracy. So I can just turn it on sit back and let it run, clicking next every hour or so until I inevitably need snacks, then after my trip to the pantry we begin the cycle again. Wall-E future here we come, all we need is those comfy looking floating chairs… okay, went off on a bit of a tangent there.

These ones.

References:

Siegel, Eric. 2013. Predictive analytics: the power to predict who will click, buy, lie, or die. Hoboken: Wiley.

Data - A Marketing Tool

In week 9, the subject matter was about big data and telemetrics. I have to be honest, I feel like a lot of the information that surrounds this topic went over my head. But I did come away understanding why it is important and how it can be useful for predicting behaviour and patterns.

The use of internet has grown dramatically in recent 10 years. People are uploading great amount of data including emails, photos and articles into the public domain, and have formed a huge platform. The internet has become a platform that generating information and data, every minute giant amounts of it are being generated from the internet users. Every minute, YouTube users are uploading 48 hours of video, Facebook users are sharing 684,478 pieces of content, while Tumblr is having 27,778 new posts published (Neil 2012). What an unbelievable amount!

  Data is a vast, endless regiment of recorded facts and figures (Siegel 2013). Every picture, Facebook post, movie recommendation, each successful or failed sales call, each incident, event, and transaction-is encoded as data and stored online. When people want to find some specific information online, they can just type in some keywords on a searching engine, the internet would soon list out thousands of web pages, images or files for users.

  Google is, as you all know, the largest search engine, it is fast and relevant, especially its Google 'images', 'maps' and 'news' features, are really outstanding services. Google’s stated mission is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” (Pingdom 2010). Google has nearly 70% of market share in the world. Its services include YouTube, Gmail, Google Map and Twitter. Google has, perhaps more than any other company, realized that information is power. By collecting huge amount of data, Google can make market decisions, research, refine its products, anything. For example, Google can discover what people are looking for, what people want, and make decisions based on those discoveries. People may not be paying Google with dollars, but we are paying with information.

  Although the internet has been developed around for just 20 years, it is hard to imagine life without it. It has given us instant access to vast amounts of information. Yesterday I was cooking my dinner and wondered how to make chicken curry, so I immediately went to my computer and Googled it. The internet has provided a convenient way to look for information. And I have a question: how did people get answers before internet developed? Before, if people wanted to find news, they would turn on the radio. When people tried to cook chicken curry, they would buy a cookbook. Nowadays, people are more likely to Google all their question. However, there are researches show that when people have access to search engines, they remember fewer facts and less information because they just have to remember who ( internet )knows it (Bejar 2011). For instance drivers do not have to remember the map because the GPS devices can guide us all the way. Undoubtedly, computer can help us a lot, but sometimes it may also bring some negative consequences.

  References list

Bejar, Daniel. 2011. “ How the web affect memory.” Harvard Magazine. Accessed December 11, 2011.

http://harvardmagazine.com/2011/11/how-the-web-affects-memory

Neil, Spencer. 2012. “How much data is created every minute?” Visual News. Accessed June 19, 2012.

http://www.visualnews.com/2012/06/19/how-much-data-created-every-minute/

Siegel, Eric, (2013). Introduction : The Prediction Effect. In Siegel, Eric, Predictive analytics : the power to predict who will click, buy, lie, or die, (pp.1 - 16). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. 

Pingdom. 2010. “How Google collect data about you and internet”. Royal Pingdom. Accessed January 8, 2010.

Co-founding host of Current TV described big data in The Economist YouTube video (2012) as “a new way of understanding the world, I think we can measure so much more that we ever could. Now we can visualise so much more than we ever could and it’s going to provide a whole new framework for understanding human civilization”. This statement places the information gained through big data on a high pedestal, making some question are we, the audience, now being targeted depending on what we say, through every click, hashtag or status? Or are we just expanding our communication with companies? Both the opposing sides could argue a strong case. Don Tapscott, co-author of Macrowikinomics opposed in data in The Economist YouTube video (2012) by explaining how the phrase ‘big data’ has a pejorative meaning. He said it is assumed that “if we have all this data it means we can understand customers and push stuff at them more effectively” however that is a “…wrong paradigm. It’s not a information age, it’s an age of network intelligence and one of collaboration”. 

From personal observations and study of new media, big data and online technologies I have come to my personal conclusion that there is no direct answer. Big data, like its name suggests is so big that its options of uses are endless. Big data provides answers for what internet users want, how they want it, why they want it and they are open to discussion about it. Therefore why should companies give up the opportunity to use this information to their advantage, whilst collaborating with them? Why can’t they have their cake and eat it to?

Meglena Kuneva quoted, “Data is the new oil” (Siegal 2013, p3). This quote defines the worth it holds within companies and the virtual world, including online transmedia projects. It also supports Darryl Woodfords (2013) claim in week 9’s lecture of big data being a currency across the industry. A current twitter hashtag that has emerged helping both the company and audience give and receive wanted entertainment is Eurovision through the hashtags #eurovision and #joinus. Through these hashtags SBS, the broadcasting channel, gain additional positives, the primary being exposure. The increase of one hashtag being used during a certain time frame increases its chance to be  ‘trending’ meaning more exposure to a wider audience resulting more consumers tuning into the channel and website, encouraging participation in the online unofficial voting polls. It also assists the audience to gauge how many supporters each country have through hashtags associated with #eurovision or #joinus. This can potentially reveal what performer is more liked or disliked. Eurovision also used the hashtag to communicate with the audience through Instagram sharing photos that fans post on national television abiding by Tapscott’s theory of big data being used to collaborate with one-another. By using the data collected from online platforms assists Eurovision with future shows and how they will advertise, where, the targeted audiences and countries.

Big data has a broad availability to anybody with access to the internet, and although companies use it to benefit their success, individuals also have access to it for much more cynical reasons. A recent example of this is a man who hacked into a baby monitor that connected wirelessly. For this reason everyone should take care in how they use the internet, what they share, what is being viewed and how potentially anybody and everyone has information to your data and every key, link or click you use. 

image sourced from: http://www.hashtags.org/analytics/Eurovision/

image sourced from: http://www.hashtags.org/analytics/Eurovision/ 

 Reference:

Hashtags. 2014. “Analytics for #Eurovision.”  Accessed May 10, 2014. http://www.hashtags.org/analytics/Eurovision/ 

SBS. 2014. “Eurovision.” Accessed May 10, 2014. http://www.sbs.com.au/eurovision

Siegel, Eric. 2013. “Introduction: The Prediction Effect.” Predictive analytics: the power to predict who will click, buy, lie, or die (3): 1 – 16. 

The Economist. 2012. “What is big data?.” YouTube video, posted June 26. Accessed May 10, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahZGEusG13A

We’ve been hearing a lot about the collection of data lately, especially by governments. The NSA scandal that was exposed by Edward Snowden dominated the media, especially new media, when it was uncovered last year. People were shocked to hear their elected officials were secretly gathering data on them, and it slowly spread across the globe as more and more countries were implicated by the leaked documents. It was interesting to me, however, that this garnered so much media attention. Citizens from all over the globe have been knowingly sharing details of their lives with corporations for years. Facebook, Google, and Twitter know more about me than most of my Facebook ‘friends’, and even some of my real friends.  I thought it was strange that people suddenly felt violated when they found out politicians had been taking a look at the data for themselves. It seems contradictory that the majority of the population is ok with people making money off our personal data, but when the government is scanning it for potential security threats without telling us, suddenly it is an unforgiveable crime.

The rise of this unprecedented age of data collection and storage has happened so quickly it seems a lot of people fail to understand the magnitude of what is going on. As was shown in one of the videos in the week 9 lecture (The Economist, 2012), in 2011 the estimated amount of data created was 1.8 zettabytes. That number so big it is impossible to comprehend

.

Image sourced from: http://3bh7z63et5za3zf2gq2i3d83tlv.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/se-graph1.jpg

Official figures show about 67% of all internet searches in 2013 used Google (Lee, 2013), and they keep all of that search data. At the moment, this data is mostly used for advertising purposes. With all of the different branches of Google that exist now, 95% of their revenue still came from advertising in 2012 (Peterson, 2013).

Image sourced from: http://googledontbeevil.com/letter/images/google-dont-be-evil.gif

Google’s unofficial motto is “Don’t be evil”, and it says it will never share your information with others (Google, 2014). However, that is only their policy as it stands right now, with no telling what will happen in the future. Google are such an integral part of the internet now that they could do almost anything, and people would still use their products. Ask yourself, what would it take for you to stop using every Google-made product? The bottom line is, ‘Big Data’ is like ‘Big Oil’ or ‘Big Pharmaceuticals”: they are a part of our lives, they have huge control over it, and there is not much we can do about it. If we want to use the internet, we are always going to need a way to navigate it. While Google is the best at that, most people will continue to use Google. So with all this in mind, is it really so horrible that the governments of the world are sneaking a peak into our data as well?

We are living in a world now where we just have to assume that everything we do on the internet is going to be seen by someone, and we have to be thinking about that every time we open our laptops or pick up our phones. Children that are born today in first world countries will never know what true privacy is, and that is the price we pay for the pleasure of not having to go to the library to finish our assignments.

References: 

The Economist. (2012, June 26). The dark side of big data [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raJOkguPrH4

Lee, J. (2013). Google's Search Market Share Shoots Back to 67%. Retrieved from http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2289560/Googles-Search-Market-Share-Shoots-Back-to-67

Peterson, T. (2013). Google Finally Crosses $50 Billion Annual Revenue Mark. Retrieved from http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/google-finally-crosses-50-billion-annual-revenue-mark-146710

Big data for lack of a better term is just that- big. Unfathomable and untameable and somewhat unable to be scrutinised. Part of the trade off of being an active member of the cyber community is becoming one of many. While we think Social media like Facebook or Twitter is allowing us to express our individuality it is also allowing us to be measured - to be quantified and monetized. 

The individual in the scheme of millions of users becomes data and the opinions that seem like expression become something to be measured and acted on. 

Watching the lecture, I couldn't help thinking that I haven't been tweeting about my favourite shows enough. The thought that my engagement can be measured in what I choose to vocalise online is frightening to me somewhat. 

I don't say anything online I wouldn't say on a bus. Sometimes I like to keep my taste private, I prefer discussing my favourite films and shows in the physical space.  

For instance every week I sit down with my close friends and discuss the most recent episode of Game Of Thrones, we talk about it and mull over the characters we like or dislike. Its probably the most time any of us spend without phones in hand, not tweeting.  To think that engagement in this show for instance is being measured by twitter activity does it a disservice as I know that the discussion and engagement is so heightened that it creates a mini media blackout within my friendship circle. 

The feeling of aversion I sense in myself is most likely based on my  feeling that the loudest voice is not necessarily  the most popular opinion, nor the most important.  

This isn't to say I'm completely opposed to Big data collection and analysis.  I think its high time that 'the powers to be' so to speak take notice of public opinion in real time.  I feel that the rise of big data collection may also produce a homogenisation of perspective. 

Also the naivety of internet users means that while. Technically savvy users may be aware that the information and content they are producing is open for corporate interpretation, targeted marketing and the like. Whereas some users may be walking blindly into the fire as it were. 

In Mark Jones'  article for the Sydney Morning Herald he summarised concisely:

The point is there will be all sorts of unintended consequences from this behaviour. Some good, like voice recognition searches that actually work. Others not good, like discovering private customer data was matched against our social networking profile.

In reflection Big data is still too big to adequately synthesise. I would caution the attention paid to the significance of online monitoring while also encouraging open dialogue. As always I am hypocritical in my opinion, but one must concede that the online platform is as ever a grey area with many facets and complexities. 

References: 

Jones, Mark . 2012. “Big Data's unintended consequences” Accessed 11 May, 2014.http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/business-it/big-datas-unintended-consequences-20120327-1vwcq.html

Woodford, Daryl. 2014. “KCB206 Internet Self and Beyond: Week 10 Lecture Notes.” Accessed 11 May, 2014.http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_4_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fcontent%2FlistContent.jsp%3Fcourse_id%3D_108110_1%26content_id%3D_5232451_1