Data – the new oil – and its inexhaustible supply

TODAY I begin the first of a series of opinions discussing the impact, challenges and opportunities as a result of the so-called disruption caused by the advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, of Big Data.

If I were to ask people how much they pay for online services such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Google, I would likely get looks of bewilderment and confusion. After all, everyone knows these online services are free, right?

What if I told you that access to and usage of these services have a value, but instead of a price of admission, it is a fee most don’t realize they are paying, or even if they are aware of it, couldn’t be bothered about the cost.

Facebook’s 2016 advertising revenue stood at $8.629 billion. Taken in context with the 1.230 billion users of the platform, that figure comes down to roughly $7.02 of advertising revenue per user. Google boasts of a much - tising revenue of $79.4 billion, which converts to a revenue of about $79.40 per account holder. Now consider that the total global revenue of the entire Google empire, inclusive of all services and products, reached $89.5 billion for the same year, then advertising revenue accounted for a massive 88.72 percent of that.

Clearly, these multi-billiondollar technology giants are heavily reliant on online advertising for their revenue stream. The open secret is that advertising is tailored to the target market, based on the various user actions online, is useful for marketing. Each and every share and like, post,