Author(s)
Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee
Source
The Atlantic, November 21, 2011
Summary
This article provides a lay summary of recent developments in business uses of big data sets.
Policy Relevance
Governments could utilize methods employing large-scale data analysis and experimentation to improve their efficiency and provide better services to constituents.
Main Points
- Information technology permits businesses to track an immense quantity of customer behavior, cheaply.
- For example, a web site operated by a business is likely to track click patters, search terms, and purchases.
- Businesses can also track their internal operations; for example, UPS collects information about delivery times and truck routes.
- Large quantities of data enable good prediction, but these data can be exploited further by arranging for experiments.
- For example, Amazon.com may display different home pages to different groups of visitors, and Google typically runs more than 100 experiments daily across its products.
- The value of experiments is further increased by increasing their scale and breadth.