BIG DATA IS MAKING THE NEWS

BIG DATA IS MAKING THE NEWS. A well-known search engine has introduced a cloud-based big data service and a news laboratory which provides data about trends to journalists. During 2014 and 2015, it provided:

• The Economist with information about the employers and industry sectors that were most popular with American job seekers.
• TIME with five of the top trending people and topics for 2014: Ebola, the Ice Bucket Challenge, Ferguson [Missouri], Vladimir Putin, and Dilma Rousseff.
• The New York Times with a state-by-state assessment of popular Thanksgiving foods. In California they like persimmon bread; in Texas it was sopapilla cheesecake; in Minnesota they were searching for wild rice casserole; and in New York the favorite was stuffed artichokes.
• The Washington Post with data on depression, pain, anxiety, stress, and fatigue, so it could create a daily misery index for the year.
• Buzzfeed and Vocativ with British and American political data, including the most searched candidate names and questions most frequently asked of candidates.

The search engine also tracks what we don’t know or can’t remember. For instance, it has created a cocktail tool to provide instructions for making the drinks most frequently sought in online searches and a nutrition comparison tool to facilitate food smack downs (mashed potatoes beat sweet potatoes for sugar, but sweet potatoes win when it comes to Vitamin A, potassium, and calcium).

Always remember: When you go online and use certain search engines, your data is being stored and sorted. It’s important to know.

Weekly Focus - Think About It

“We think too small, like the frog at the bottom of the well. He thinks the sky is only as big as the top of the well. If he surfaced, he would have an entirely different view.”

                                                                                          --Mao Zedong, Former Chairman of the Communist Party of China

Best Regards,

Jim Parks, CFP, AEP, AIF

President and Wealth Advisor

Parks Wealth Management - jim@parkswm.com

216 E. Ridgewood Ave Ridgewood, New Jersey