Big Data is a digital Wild Wild West of opportunity.   A gamut of players sit at an open-source poker table holding the data cards (your information) from transactions, social web, telemetric/sensors, archives, and web media.   Although US corporate participation today is found mostly in the mega businesses, garage start-ups are prevalent to making the Big Data products and services that change paradigms in the Information Age.

Perhaps someday there will be a new sheriff in town, but for now, few standard practices exist, even in regard to delicate conversation of data privacy.  Big Data can be as simple as an app product that makes your life simpler.  Big Data apps help you make decisions faster by understanding who you are and what you do from your data exhaust.  Big Data also has grand possibilities.  In the collective intelligence of crowds, world peace is possible.   Global Maritime Sensing is one such example.

But what is Big Data?  Is it the same as Web 2.0?  Is it Web 3.0? Is it a new way to refer to the Information Age?  Is it a concept or a practice or an application?  Big Data is a paradigm shift evolving in several layers.  In the next posts, we will step through those layers to get a better understanding of what Big Data is and what the paradigm shifts are that will continue to affect the world in expanding circles

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