'D' of Things

Courtesy of Hortonworks On March 1, I had the opportunity to attend this year’s Hortonworks Analyst Summit in San Francisco, where Hortonworks announced several product enhancements and new versions and a new definition for its strategy going forward. Hortonworks seems to be making a serious attempt to take over the data management space, while maintaining a commitment to open sources and especially to the Apache Foundation. Thus as Hortonworks keeps gaining momentum, it’s also consolidating its corporate strategy and bringing a new balance to its message (combining both technology and business). By reinforcing alliances, and at the same time moving further towards the business mainstream with a more concise messaging around enterprise readiness, Hortonworks is declaring itself ready to win the battle for the big data management space. The big question is if the company’s strategy will be effective enough to succeed at this goal, especially in a market already overpopulated a

There is probably no bigger dream for a data geek like myself than creating the ultimate data dashboard or scorecard of the world. One that summarizes and enables the analysis of all the data in the world. Well, for those of you who have also dreamt about this, Kalev H. Leetaru , a senior fellow at the George Washington University Center for Cyber & Homeland Security has tapped into your dreams—and is working on something in this realm. Leetaru, whom some have called “The Wizard of Big Data,” is developing a platform for monitoring and better understanding how human society works. The project called Global Database of Events, Language, or simply The GDELT Project , is an ambitious endeavor created to “crack” the social numbers of the world, and has the aim of improving our understanding of human society. As described by the folks at GDELT: The GDELT Project came from a desire to better understand global human society and especially the connection between communicativ