Big Data in a small Nutshell sounds like a perfect oxymoron. However, this is exactly what this article tries to achieve; explaining a very vast concept in an abstract way. In the world of Data Science, correctly understanding Big Data is an absolute minimum. This article was originally posted at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/big-data-nutshell-rathish-poovadan/  Please read further to explore:

This article is a primer for a complete novice to the world of Big Data. While you can, for sure find a well researched white paper on these concepts, this is my attempt to help those who are lost in a myriad of definitions. The below tweet by Behavioral Economics Professor, Dan Ariely sums up the confusion and still holds true.

I'll leave the history, formalities, textbook definitions etc. for a later time. Lets dive in deep to the crux of it. Prior to 2009, if you had googled for 'offers on shoes', you'd have received over a 1,000,000 results or much more. Even today, you'll receive similar number of results. But what has changed over these years is, every time after a search, you'll find the results following you. Similarly, if you visit Amazon, Flipkart or any other shopping websites and you'll notice that the items you checked there keep following you like a desperate salesman thru ads trying to grab your attention. On a more closer observation, you'll notice that there are three entities involved:

1. The Seeker - You - The end user who accesses the Internet for different services.
2. The Sought - Entities like Google, Amazon, Facebook, Tinder app etc., for the services of which, the seekers connect to Internet. The sought-after entities may demand the seeker to provide additional information in exchange for the services.
3. The Solicitors - Websites or apps that offer platform to host ads or seeker-interested content. Sometimes the Sought entity doubles up as the Solicitor e.g. Facebook where the seekers visit for online social networking; however, Facebook can also show posts customized to the seekers' browsing habits.

The common thread among these three entities is economics of Data. Most seekers wouldn't mind signing up with the sought-after entities in exchange of their usage statistics for better services (gentle phrase for collecting their most intimate behavioral data). The sought ones may collate these data and either sell it to advertising companies, or depending on their privacy policy may monetize by offering reduced charges for advertisers through targeted marketing campaigns. Google's ad program had disrupted the static big banner industry (remember those banner ads) of early 2000s with small customized ads offered through solicitors.

So we have learned about the three entities interconnected with a common thread of Data. This is where Big Data comes in to picture. Rather than repeating the oft-repeated statistics, I want you to check this link: What happens in 60 seconds?!

Big Data is about capturing and storing the data generated by the Seekers when they interact with the Sought. Big Data is also about processing that data in to meaningful insights basis which it can be fed to Solicitors for monetizing. Add to this the data generated when data from intelligent (read connected) sensors are also captured. And not just for 60 seconds, but for every second! As you can imagine, even a million laptops strung together cannot handle this much volume of data. Specialized infrastructure and applications are required, thanks to the Cloud technology, this is possible today to deal with it.

In a nutshell, Big Data Industry is all about the amalgamation of technology, infrastructure, software and of course, human beings trained to work in this environment to keep the circle of data running from the seeker to the sought to the solicitor and back to the seeker!