Big Data Giving Us What We Want NOW!

Today’s culture is all about instant gratification. If we can’t get our Starbucks in a drive through or if our SnapChat won’t download we feel hugely inconvenienced. With these types of expectations, our generation is accustomed to getting everything we want and getting it now. Even though this seems like a very selfish way to live (and sometimes it definitely is), companies are wising up to these expectations and accommodating to them.

Think about Amazon, they offer Amazon Prime so that you can get packages delivered within 2 days as opposed to an indefinite 3-5 days. Not only are they making shipping quicker, but they now track your purchases so they can better advertise to you what you may need… making your shopping experience much faster. Rather than having to search the internet, the internet seems to know you. All you have to do is type half a word into a Google search and magically it knows what you are trying to look for.

This is all because of Big Data. Big Data is what tracks us; everything about us is being recorded and sent to companies now. Talk about being stalked. But this is being stalked in a good way, at least according to our culture. We like having everything at our finger tips, less work = better. In one sense it is sad to see our work ethic dive bombing, but our world is also becoming more efficient. The use of Big Data is allowing everything to become faster and more accurate.

A great example of this is Pandora. Pandora studies what songs we like and dislike and uses that information to put together playlists that seem meant for our individual music tastes. It is much more convenient to listen to a radio station that only plays our favorite songs. This way we get to listen to great music without wasting time searching for the next song or listening to our own homemade playlist on repeat. This is the type of business that will go far with our current culture, the type that caters to individuals in a fast and easy manner.

Not only is Big Data saving people time, it is making companies a lot of money. Companies that play into the instant gratification game are rising to success with the use of Big Data. By understanding their customers and knowing how to give them what they want as fast as possible, businesses are excelling.