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I've always thought of "Big Data" as being big in the same sense as "Big Oil". It's not any specific capacity of storage or computation - it's the value being e

I've always thought of "Big Data" as being big in the same sense as "Big Oil". It's not any specific capacity of storage or computation - it's the value being extracted from the data to make companies a powerful influence in their industry. I still think the term is overused as well, but I think the "Big" doesn't have to refer to the dataset itself.

saryant 12y ago
This is completely off-topic, but "Big Oil" actually did have a specific historic meaning: it's the descendants of the Seven Sisters, the oil companies party to the Consortium of Iran. Those seven were Anglo-Persian (now BP), Gulf + Standard of California + Texaco (now Chevron), Shell, Standard of New Jersey + Standard of New York (Exxon). By popular convention, Total has sort of slipped into this group despite not being party to the Iran agreement, which obviously undermines the historic meaning of the term.