Data brokers that quietly gather billions of pieces of data on Americans should be required to operate more openly, so that those categorized as “financially challenged” or possibly suffering from serious medical conditions have the ability to check and challenge those characterizations, a federal report said Tuesday. The data broker […] Read more »
The changing nature of who produces and owns data: How will it impact survey research?
Survey researchers have become interested in big data because it offers potential solutions to problems we’re experiencing with traditional methods. Much of the focus so far has been on social media (e.g., Tweets), but sensors (wearable tech) and the internet Cloud Photoof things (IoT) are producing an increasingly rich, complex, […] Read more »
The United States of Metrics
… In the last few years, there has been a revolution so profound that it’s sometimes hard to miss its significance. We are awash in numbers. Data is everywhere. Old-fashioned things like words are in retreat; numbers are on the rise. … That God-shaped hole in the universe? It’s been […] Read more »
Democrats seek to reshape midterm electorate along lines of a presidential year
… Democrats are banking on the belief that they can better identify potential supporters, motivate them and get them to the polls — in essence, reshape the midterm electorate to make it look more like the electorate in a presidential year. To try to do so, they will for the […] Read more »
Growing Doubts About Big Data
There’s quite a kerfuffle going on in the world of big data, with a range of prominent articles in the past month suggesting it’s not the analytical holy grail it’s been made out to be. Taken together, these pieces suggest the start of a serious rethink of what big data […] Read more »
Eight (No, Nine!) Problems With Big Data
Big data is suddenly everywhere. Everyone seems to be collecting it, analyzing it, making money from it and celebrating (or fearing) its powers. Whether we’re talking about analyzing zillions of Google search queries to predict flu outbreaks, or zillions of phone records to detect signs of terrorist activity, or zillions […] Read more »