18 Incredible Internet-Usage Statistics

Big Data presents both challenges and opportunities to the federal government. In fact, Big Data is probably the primary way government will enhance services to citizens over the next five to 10 years. The problem, of course, is that the data is so massive (and growing every day) that agencies can’t keep up. And the tools and resources needed to turn Big Data into actionable deliverables are expensive. Luckily, as budgets shrink, computing power is growing almost exponentially. There are a number of factors at play, and although challenges will always be present, Big Data is too big an opportunity to ignore.

The term “Big Data” is a bit vague. While data can include everything from tweets to data-center temperatures, it’s hard to comprehend the scale of the data at hand. This year’s Internet Trends report by Silicon Valley venture capitalists Mary Meeker and Liang Wu add some necessary perspective. The report examines the state of the Internet in terms of users, advertising, services, e-commerce and devices. The numbers are startling and add necessary perspective to the notion of Big Data.

For example, more than 350 million photos are uploaded to Facebook every day. Each image carries EXIF metadata, such as location, camera type, exposure, aperture and megapixels. Each photo is a collection of data, and hidden within the massive database of photos and metadata is a story about the users, the camera manufacturers and the social networking sites. If manipulated correctly, organizations could find deep insight into the trends that will predict the future of photography. The same is true for many other types of data, including the data that will power future government services:

The full report can be viewed below, but here are 18 of the most astonishing numbers:

For more stats on the growth of mobile device usage, click here.