Bigger is Better!

This is not about the new iPhone, it is about something much bigger that even the 128GB iPhone won’t be able to handle a fraction of its size; this is about “Big Data”, a term that has become quite famous and familiar in the technology industry in the recent years.

But without going into the debatable definitions of Big Data, or even delving into the argument of whether it is good or just creepy (cheeky smile), we will focus instead on its functional aspects and the impact it can have on improving our experiences as consumers and making our lives easier.

Imagine walking into Dubai Mall on your birthday with your newest smartphone in your pocket; Beacons Micro-location technology will detect your presence in the mall, but instead of sending you a simple congratulations message, the smart analytics engine running in the background will immediately do a quick check on you in the realm of Big Data “The Internet” and all of its Social Networks, Blogs and other… and in a fraction of a second it will notice that you are someone interested in gadgets and electronics, but not only that, it will also notice that you have been doing a lot of online search in the past couple of weeks for “Bluetooth Speakers”.

Now a special birthday message will be pushed to your phone, one that contains a 30% discount coupon on Bluetooth speakers from your favorite electronics shop in Dubai Mall; you decide to take advantage of the offer and head towards that electronics shop, once again Beacons will detect your arrival at the shop and relevant information will be passed to the shop manager, who decides to greet you in person and to your surprise he/she will give you an additional 20% discount on your purchase and another small gift on top of that, but that gift isn’t random at all; it is the same smartphone case you added to your online cart the other day but never bought.

So here you are, walking out of the mall on your birthday with a big smile on your face.
This is not science fiction, this is a scenario that can happen today and it is just a small example of the power of Big Data – when used wisely – and of the impact it can have on our everyday experiences.

Image via Camelia.boban, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.