Read "The Age of Big Data" article, published in ...

Read "The Age of Big Data" article, published in The New York Times, and write a one page paper on the topic. In your own words, explain what is Big Data, why is it important and what does it help businesses do.

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Big data refers to the facts which can be collected about people with the help of information technology. It is important since these data can be analyzed to identify the patterns and historical trends to obtain information which is useful for making strategic decisions. Due to the increasing use of IT applications by people, it has become possible to obtain a large variety of data and the growth in data has been about 50% per year. For example, when a person browses Google, the browsing patterns are noted and these indicate the trend which can be used by businesses to make decisions. There are large sources for collecting various types of data. As an example, social networking sites can provide data about the psychological and social trends of consumers. Similarly, if Google sees that a large number of people are browsing about buying new homes or information related to buying new homes, the data signals increase in demand for housing. This can be used by home-builders and home insurance providers to keep them ready so that they can meet the growing demand....