Database Reference
In-Depth Information
how loud the packaging was. Customers created thousands of YouTube videos
showing how noisy the environmentally friendly bag was. A “Sorry, but I can't
hear you over this SunChips bag” Facebook page had over 50,000 likes, and
bloggers let their feelings be known. In the end, Frito-Lay introduced a new qui-
eter SunChips bag, demonstrating the power and importance of social media.
For a number of years, Facebook was adding a new user every three
seconds; today these users collectively generate double-digit terabytes of data
every day. In fact, in a typical day, Facebook experiences over 2.5 billion likes
and 300 million photo uploads. The format of a Facebook post is indeed struc-
tured data; it's marked up in the JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) format:
{
"data": [
{ "id": "53423432999_23423423_19898799",
"from": { "name": "Paul Zikopoulos", "id": "Z12" },
"message": "Thinking of surprising my wife with a quality time gift that
lets her know she's special, any ideas? I thought about taking her to
the driving range, perhaps play a round and caddie my game.",
"created_time": "2012-08-02T21:27:44+0000", "likes: 5,"
"comments": { "data": [ { "id": 2847923942_723423423",
"from": { "name": "MaryAnne Infanti", "id": "948574763" },
"message": "Paul! Purses and gold! Costco's got a great Kate Spade purse
on sale this week that says I love you without having to lift a pen.
If you go with your idea, the only thing driving will be you: alone! ",
"created_time 2012-00-02T11:27:44+0000", "likes: 64 } }
Although there is no doubt that this Facebook posting is structured, it's
the
unstructured
part that has even more potential value; it holds the intent of
a bad plan and commentary that strongly suggests what a better plan might
be. The structured data is easy to store and analyze; however, analyzing its
unstructured components for intent, sentiment, and so on is very
hard, but
it's got the potential to be very rewarding,
if
…
Twitter is another phenomenon. The world has taken to generating double-
digit terabytes of short opinions (140 characters or less) and commentary (often
unfiltered) about sporting events, sales, images, politics, and more. Twitter is yet
another medium that provides enormous amounts of data that's structured in
format, but it's the unstructured part within the structure that holds most of the
untapped value. Consider that Noah Kravitz (@noahkravitz), prior to leaving
his company for a competitor, had over 25,000 followers when he worked for a
certain company. When he resigned, that former employer sued him, claiming
that Mr. Kravitz's Twitter followers represented a client list belonging to
