The social data revolution is the shift in human communication patterns towards increased personal information sharing and its related implications, made possible by the rise of social networks in early 2000s. While social networks were used in the early days to privately share photos and private messages, the subsequent trend towards people passively and actively sharing personal information more broadly has resulted in unprecedented amounts of public data.[1]
This large and frequently updated data source has been described as a new type of scientific instrument for the social sciences.[2] Several independentent researchers have used social data to "nowcast" and forecast trends such as unemployment, flu outbreaks, travel spending and political opinions in a way that is faster, more accurate and cheaper than standard government reports or Gallup polls.[2]
Social data refers to data individuals create that is knowingly and voluntarily shared by them. Cost and overhead previously rendered this semi-public form of communication unfeasible, but advances in social networking technology from 2004-2010 has made broader concepts of sharing possible.[3] The types of data users are sharing include geolocation, medical data,[4] dating preferences, open thoughts, interesting news articles, etc.
Early examples of social data are Craigslist and the wishlists of Amazon.com. Both enable users to communicate information to anybody who is looking for it. They differ in their approach to identity. Craigslist leverages the power of anonymity, while Amazon.com leverages the power of persistent identity, based on the history of the customer with the firm. The job market is even being shaped by the information people share about themselves on sites like LinkedIn and Facebook.[5]
Examples of more mature social data are Twitter and Facebook. On Twitter, sending a message or tweet is as simple as sending an SMS text message. Twitter made this C2W, customer to world: Any tweet a users sends can potentially be read by the entire world. Facebook focuses on interactions between friends, C2C in traditional language. It provides many ways for collecting data from its users: “tag” a friend in a photo, “comment” on what they posted, or just “like” it. These data are the basis for sophisticated models of the relationships between users. They can be used to significantly increase the relevance of what is shown to the user, and for advertising purposes.[6]