User:ChrissyJensen/sandbox

The article about the social data revolution is missing a lot. There is no lead section, for one. The article itself provides a broad summary of the topic without much detail. It fails to discuss issues regarding the rise of social data sharing such as privacy concerns, data mining, etc. There also needs to be information on how exactly companies can use social data to impact consumer behavior. Specific examples of how social data was used in certain contexts such as flu outbreaks might be beneficial to provide a more thorough understanding of how social data is used. Including images such as graphs showing information regarding the rise in social data information sharing might be impactful as well.

Possible Lead Section for Social Data Revolution

The social data revolution is the shift in human communication patterns towards increased personal information sharing and its related implications, made possible by the rise of social networks in early 2000s. This phenomenon has resulted in the accumulation of unprecedented amounts of public data.^[1]

This large and frequently updated data source has been described as a new type of scientific instrument for the social sciences.^[2] Several independent researchers have used social data to "nowcast" and forecast trends such as unemployment, flu outbreaks,^[3] mood of whole populations,^[4] travel spending and political opinions in a way that is faster, more accurate and cheaper than standard government reports or Gallup polls.^[2]

Social data refers to data individuals create that is knowingly and voluntarily shared by them. Cost and overhead previously rendered this semi-public form of communication unfeasible, but advances in social networking technology from 2004-2010 has made broader concepts of sharing possible.^[5] The types of data users are sharing includegeolocation, medical data,^[6] dating preferences, open thoughts, interesting news articles, etc.

The social data revolution does not only enable new business models like the ones on Amazon.com, but also provides large opportunities to improve decision-making for public policy and international development.^[9]

The analysis of large amounts of social data leads to the field of computational social science. Classic examples include the study of media content^[10] or of social media content.^[3][4][11]

The growing expanse of social data available has led to concerns about social data privacy and misuse.