The New AA of Big Data

I know you are curious what Alcoholics Anonymous has to do with Big Data, right? The answer is nothing. However, the AA stands for Aggregated and Anonymized. So what does this have to do with Big Data you might ask? It has to do with the information collected from between 12 to 13 million advanced set-top cable boxes. Who is collecting this information from these cable boxes? You guessed it, Comcast Corp. to be exact. Comcast is working as I type this article to unlock this vast amount of information in hopes to save the U.S. television advertising market which has been in decline.

Comcast will also capture viewing data from streaming apps used by its cable-TV subscribers in hopes of licensing different data products for profit to other companies. Many other companies such as ESPN, Turner Broadcasting and Discovery Communications) have stepped up to discuss these so-called data products. This mounting treasure of data will provide vital information so that the industry can better compete with Google’s Alphabet Inc. and even Facebook Inc. as Comcast mentions.

According to The Wall Street Journal “Comcast Makes Move Into the Data Busines  s”, A TV network could use Comcast’s viewing data, in conjunction with third-party data on buying behavior, to answer such questions as which shows have the highest proportion of viewers who are shopping for a car. Such a service could command a premium ad rate, the thinking goes. TV networks also are interested in using data to evaluate their programming—to assess, for instance, whether a show with a small audience is worth keeping on the air because it has an avid group of return viewers.

Only subsets of this data will be licensed to any company interested and Comcast said that they will not give programmers information about rivals. However, this should make you uneasy and I guess this is the new norm since all companies have entered the Age of Digital Transformation. In conclusion, now that you know that every show that you watch or record on your DVR is being tracked and analyzed, I hope that it will not stop you from watching one of your favorite shows such as “Scandal” on Thursday nights.

In the spirit of keeping my fellow Data Protection cohorts informed, please

‘Follow’ me on Twitter and for more creative content on Backup & Recovery please listen to my podcast Data Protection Gumbo.

Here are some other recent posts I have written on LinkedIn:

• Running with the Big Data Bulls…
• Wake Up & Smell the Big Data!
• The Medical Big Data Race is on…
• Straight Outta Transcendence
• Hungry for Knowledge: Try Data Protection Gumbo
• Data Protection Man v Big Data Billionaires: Passion Ignites Storage

Demetrius Malbrough is an expert in solving Data Protection challenges for small, medium and enterprise companies. He holds multiple Backup and Recovery certifications with major software leaders represented in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Backup / Recovery Software. Demetrius is passionate about providing solutions to help companies meet demanding data protection objectives in the face of data’s changing paradigm in the Copy Data Management market.