Social networking bigs up big data

There's a lot of talk about big data at the moment but it can sometimes seem to be a bit of an abstract concept. In fact it's something that we encounter and contribute to all the time, even if we don’t always realize it.

Social media risk specialist ZeroFox has produced an infographic showing that where social media is concerned big data is very real and very big indeed.

Around three-quarters of all internet connected people on Earth use some form of social media. That makes for a massive amount of user-generated online content. So whether you're a marketer or an information security professional that means a lot of data to search through to find something useful.

Facebook for example has 1.36 billion users, with five new profiles being created every second and 4.5 billion likes every day. Twitter has a billion users and generates 6,000 tweets per second. Relative newcomer Google+ has 540 million active users and gains 800,000 each month. Even professional network LinkedIn has 300 million users with two more profiles added every second.

So whether businesses are looking for new customers or seeking to protect their networks, digesting these massive amounts of data presents a major challenge. You can find out more on the ZeroFox blog or view the infographic below.

Image Credit: Oleksiy Mark / Shutterstock