Blog 4 (historical development of Big data)

 

Blog 4: The Rise of the Internet and Digital Data (1990s)

The 1990s marked a major turning point in the development of big data because of the rapid growth of the internet. As more people began using personal computers and accessing websites, the amount of digital information increased significantly.

Companies started collecting website traffic information to understand customer behavior. Search engines such as Yahoo! and later Google stored massive amounts of search data. Online businesses also began recording customer purchases and preferences.

Email communication became common during this decade, creating large amounts of stored digital communication records. Organizations also started using enterprise software systems to manage employee information, finances, and inventory.

Storage devices improved greatly during this time. Hard drives became larger and cheaper, allowing companies to keep more information for longer periods. Data warehouses were introduced to help organizations collect data from different departments in one place.

By the end of the 1990s, experts realized that traditional databases were struggling to handle growing amounts of information. This problem created demand for new technologies that could process larger datasets more efficiently.

The internet revolution changed how data was generated and collected, creating the first real signs of what would later become known as big data.