Mobile technologies have given rise to tremendous amounts of data in real-time, which can be unstructured and uncertain. This growth can be attributed as Mobile Big Data and provides new challenges and opportunities for innovation. This chapter attempts to define the concept of Mobile Big Data, provide description of various sources of Mobile Big Data and discuss SWAI (Sources Warehousing Analytics Insights) model of Big Data processing. To understand this complex concept, it is important to visualize the Big Data ecosystem, respective players. Moreover, mobile computing, Internet of things, and other associated technologies have been discussed in light of marketing and communications based applications. The current trends in Mobile Big Data and associated value chain help us understand where the next frontiers of innovation are and how one can create value. This is linked to the future aspects of the Mobile Big Data and evolution of technologies from now onwards.
Top1. Introduction: What Is Mobile Big Data?
Mobile technology has exploded in the past decades from a research tool available in advanced economies to handheld devices in developing nations to access internet. The growth has been fueled by reduction in hardware costs, accessibility of services, increase in computation power (in range of 200 billion times since 1980s) and increase in usage for day-to-day activities. On the other hand, people from different age groups, especially teenagers and millennia generation have learnt to use these mobile technologies in creative, collaborative and collective manner. Moreover, the mobile manufacturers have built in a series of sensors to facilitate the usage of phones in a diverse ways, as well as, network externalities worked in the favor of developers creating millions of applications for the same. Some of the examples of such sensors are GPS, infrared, NFC, accelerometer, gyroscope, microphone, high resolution camera and Bluetooth. This created a fertile ground for data to be generated, captured and analyzed in a systematic manner. And companies, NGOs, governmental entities, inter-governmental agencies (such as United Nations) are finding this new challenge of massive, real time, unstructured data quite intriguing and highly valuable at the same time. This forms, what we can assert as “Mobile Big Data”, but to understand this complex concept, we first have to fathom the notion of Big Data itself and then, we can visualize Mobile Big Data as a special case of the same.
This chapter attempts to define the concept of Mobile Big Data, then provides detailed description of accompanied sources and respective applications. To understand this complex concept, it is important to visualize the Big Data ecosystem, described in the next section. Then, we discuss the Mobile Big Data value chain and associated disruptive technologies. This brings us to the final section comprising of a holistic perspective and put forth insights on Big Data influence in policy making and business decisions (with a specific case of Mobile operators). We take the case of mobile operators who have ready access to huge volumes of subscriber data, their data and network usage, consumer behavior, spending patterns and other activities. Moreover, this access to individual level data is also enhanced by their role as last mile connection provided where the new information is gathered continuously and accurately. In sum, we conclude and discuss the future aspects of Mobile Big Data.