Some Raw Data from Google’s Think Quarterly

Google is always worth a surprise. Not only do they publish a sophisticated quarterly customer magazine called Think Quarterly, but also the first issue is dedicated to Data. And since we love Data, I took a closer look. Let’s start with some raw data about, well, data. In 2010, the human race created 800 exabytes of information, from tweets and Facebook updates to PowerPoint presentations and photographs. That’s 800 billion gigabytes, or the amount of data you can fit on 75 billion 16-gig iPads. To put that into context, between the dawn of civilisation and 2003, we only…

Google is always worth a surprise. Not only do they publish a sophisticated quarterly customer magazine called Think Quarterly, but also the first issue is dedicated to Data. And since we love Data, I took a closer look. Let’s start with some raw data about, well, data.

In 2010, the human race created 800 exabytes of information, from tweets and Facebook updates to PowerPoint presentations and photographs. That’s 800 billion gigabytes, or the amount of data you can fit on 75 billion 16-gig iPads. To put that into context, between the dawn of civilisation and 2003, we only created five exabytes; now we’re creating that amount every two days. By 2020, that figure is predicted to sit at 53 zettabytes (53 trillion gigabytes) – an increase of 50 times.

This is a quote from an article about Hal Varian, Google’s famous Chief Economist. And another quote might be enough to make you read this stuff:

Data is like food, says Varian. “We used to be calorie poor and now the problem is obesity. We used to be data poor, now the problem is data obesity.”

And now for something completely different. Think Quarterly also shows their pick of the 10 best places to see sexy data online. And number one is Information is Beautiful, the blog of David McCandless – who happens to speak at NEXT11 in May. Here is one recent example from him:

What Is Consciousness? Make Up Your Own Mind

Make up your own mind.