I hope everybody on the platform noticed the **massive shift in the trending pages**, not only do we have much more diversity of content at the top of the trending pages, we also have a much wider spread of posts receiving rewards.  I have just checked the pages and the top 10 pages all have at least *$100* pay-out amounts.  If you did the same thing last week, there was a definite drop in reward payments from page 3.  There were massive payments, and then a drop to next to nothing.   

This is massive as this means that either the whales are spreading their weight more efficiently, or there are more dolphins and orca's which is created n an ongoing basis, and thereor the voting power is starting to be spread.  This will ultimately be the best thing that can happen on Steemit.  More evenly voting power.

https://s26.postimg.org/68hwg8luh/bigdata_2.jpg
[Image Credit](http://03e24ad.netsolhost.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/bigdata.jpg)

# Big data
I am not a specialist on the subject, but I have been in IT for many years, and I am blessed to understand a fairly diverse technology set. I have also been told that I have the ability to translate Information Technology into "English". What I hope to do with this post, is to open up the understanding of the the Big data world to the non-technology minds within the community.  I will also use an example to explain this in laymen's terms.

## What is Big Data?
It is exactly what it says, a large set of data.  But most people don’t really get what **Big** mean.  Even some of the more junior developers in the industry gets this wrong.  I am speaking about ***BIG***, no ... **large**, no wait **massive amounts of data**, no I think what we must call it is **enormous amounts of data**. I do not think there are specific words which actually show the size of the data we are talking about here. The data sets are so large, that it is even too big to store in a database.  Sure some Big Data projects is based on data that is stored, but let me show you an example what I am talking about.  There are many new ways which technologists is adapting to this technology and creating new ways to interrogate this type of data, but it will be too technical.

## Big Data Example
So you are driving on your way to the office and you get a call from you energy service provider.  The lady from the call centre says: @jacor,*Did you not perhaps forgot to turn off your stove before you left home for work today*.  Now how on earth will she know this.  **It is all about analysis and trends**.  We are already have a very integrated **"network of things"**, but the matter of the fact is that when energy service providers start monitoring the use of electricity in each households, business, factory or manufacturing plant, they will start seeing these type of trends.  

How will they know that you forgot your stove on?  They have been building a trend of your usage over a long period of time.  They have a dashboard, which highlights specific things, when something is out of the ordinary. This spike is out of the ordinary in this case, as for the past *101 days*, you have only used a specific amount of energy when it comes to the use of your stove. Today you are using the stove much longer than usually, so something might be wrong.  If we go further into IOT, they will know you are leaving for the office at a specific time, again a feature of connectivity on the IOT.  Your vehicle is connected to the grid and they can see that you are not at home, your wife just dropped of the kids at school, because they have just logged into the international school database.  Aha 'Big brother is waching us' .

At the end of the day, the energy provider, cannot store all the information about every household's energy forever, but they can store the trends and 'spikes' and monitor the live feed of energy flow and report on that.  For me that is big data!

 (I am planning to write a about IOT - Internet of Things- in a follow-up post, depending if this post is accepted well in our community) 

## What will big data be used for?
There are a multitude of applications for this new technology, and will be too technical to start explaining ***Hadoop*** and the likes to the specific audience I am targeting with this post.  

What I can show you in graph form, is what direction the utlisation of big data is being used for by business today as we speak.

https://s26.postimg.org/54xs4a17d/Big_Data.gif

### Why this post?

I am thinking of writing a series of posts to explain some terms, which a lot of people just take for granted and beleive it is clear that everobody just know what it is. These terms are used in the industry on an ongoing basis. If there are people in the community that will be interested in understanding more of this.  Please leave comment. If there are specific things you want to learn more about, please leave a comment. 

### I would love to hear some comments of what each of you think will be a good apllication for this technology set.  
# Happy Steeming!

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