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With the internet putting trillions of websites at our fingertips, doing research and comparing various companies head to head has made shopping and choosing more convenient. People can now see the prices of products, reviews, specs, competitors and more, all without leaving their homes. This is powerful, but is it too much? In this age of quantum data and endless information, are we more susceptible to misguided choices? Has the internet replaced the need for consultants and experts?

Is Big Data Too Big?

The vast amount of content that is available to us has created an ironic need. There is so much data, sifting through it and understanding it has become harder than ever. Even though it is easier to publish articles and books, sell goods and services it has become harder to filter the good from the bad. A topic search often produces results that are more relevant to the search terms than they are effective in displaying what is best. This has given rise to fake news as well as scams. Therefore it is difficult to sort through so much material, even the sharpest consumer and researcher can be misinformed. Because of this, quality analytics have become more powerful and more necessary. And with their increased power they can better predict trends, tendencies, relevant data and eliminate wasted time.

Too much information makes all of the information noise instead of coherent, helpful messages. The question then becomes, what can we do about the overwhelming amount of information and how can we be effective in our data queries? We’ve all seen commercials for companies where we can compare as we shop. We often use apps to choose what movie and which theater we will go to. Overall, we are becoming more savvy with the technology that helps us make these decisions. And the more we use the more we create better analytics.

Are Search Modifiers The Answer?

For many, the idea of simply using better search modifiers is the answer. But this solution is more technical than many users’ skills. People often want their search to match their intuition. This is challenging, but the goal is more achievable when we continue to provide big data for analytics. More information creates better user experience and eventually that means getting the results we are all looking for.

Curation Is Key To User Experience

Businesses use analytics to shape their campaigns to potential consumers. By doing this, they can see who might have the highest return on investment. When we consumers understand this, we can use the same concept, but in reverse. We can use tools to compare our car insurance, reviews of movies we want to see or we can find sites that will tell which colleges best meet our needs. Some choices are even tailored to meet various learning needs if you want a more specific learning experience. Interacting with sites and apps that collect and curate the data from our choices and experiences is becoming normal and regular.

What we do when we use sites that curate and compare data is help those companies continue to provide better and more accurate results. When we compare-shop we add to the the big data needed for accurate analytics. This not only makes their information better, but it improves our ability to unearth the best search results as we wend our way through the enormous and increasing sea of data.