Social media
The internet revolution was followed by yet another technology paradigm – social media. While the internet was about connecting people and sharing information, the information that was available to be utilized was still limited (relatively).
Social media created interactions, blogging, and micro-blogging opportunities, leading to a data explosion.
Figure 2: Social media applications
As social media took the world by storm, there were a few key developments with big technology firms. Facebook spotted early winners in Instagram and WhatsApp. While Instagram was a steal at $1 billion, the acquisition of WhatsApp at $19 billion did raise some eyebrows. The size of the market that these applications were addressing, however, justified the cost. Also, by the time WhatsApp was acquired in 2014, Facebook's revenue in advertisements alone was about $12 billion, and the user base was at 1.3 billion people.
Despite the success of Facebook...
