This document provides a list of over 30 links to resources about big data, analytics, social games, and related topics. The links cover free reports on big data, digital advertising, how Google and Facebook operate, NoSQL databases, cloud computing, data-driven design, social network structure, analytics in games, A/B testing, and more. The document aims to share useful information and perspectives for understanding big data and its applications.

1. @HAStark
Resource
Making Links
Friends
with OpenLabs @LJMU
Big Data
Big Data Master Class
30 March 2012
Heather Stark
@HAStark
Kinran
OpenLabs LJMU Big Data Master Class

2. Resource Links Part One
@HAStark
Free Big Data reports
http://www.mckinsey.com/Insights/MGI/Research/Technology_and_Innovation/Big_data_The_next_frontier_for_innovation
http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920025559.do?cmp=il-radar-ebooks-planning-for-big-data-radar-announcement
Digital advertising market map
http://www.adexchanger.com/pdf/Display-Advertising-Technology-Landscape-2010-05-03.pdf
The Quantified Self – what has Stephen Wolfram been doing the past 10 yrs??
http://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2012/03/the-personal-analytics-of-my-life/
How many servers does Google have? Signals from Google’s ‘power user’ status
Jonathan Koomey. 2011. Growth in data center electricity use 2005 to 2010. Oakland, CA:
Analytics Press. July. <http://www.analyticspress.com/datacenters.html>
Anatomy of Facebook – summary article and link to full report
source: https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-data-team/anatomy-of-facebook/10150388519243859
Cisco’s take on The Internet of Things
http://www.slideshare.net/CiscoIBSG/ten-technology-trends-that-will-change-the-world-in-ten-years
How to check if NoSQL is trending on Google Searches
http://www.google.com/trends/?q=nosql
Kinran
A technical-ish once over lightly of Hadoop
http://developer.yahoo.com/hadoop/tutorial/module4.html
OpenLabs LJMU Big Data Master Class 2

3. Resource Links Part One
@HAStark
A cartoon about what people think Google does vs what it actually does
http://www.bonkersworld.net/tracked/
MWD Advisors Cloud computing report (free, but registration required)
http://www.mwdadvisors.com/library/detail.php?id=200
Being wrong is normal. Signal detection theory for beginners.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Receiver_Operating_Characteristic.png
How Target knew a girl was pregant before her family did
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.html
Interesting companies making a business out of other peoples’ data
www.datasift.com – UK startup reselling extracts from Twitter firehose
www.duedil.com - UK companies house data
www.tubetap.com – London transport fare refunds from UK startup
www.kaggle.com – a gamified marketplace for analytics problems
If this is all too enthusiastic check out
http://seekingalpha.com/article/441171-beware-the-hype-over-big-data-analytics
Thanks to
Laurent Lachal, Principal Analyst, Ovum Limited, for his critique of the NIST definition of Cloud Computing*
Mark Wiggins, Vice President, WN Holdings Limited, for insight into Knowledge Process Outsourcing
Colin Shears, WorldwideHead of Analytics, IBM, for material on competitor analysis using social media
Kinran
*OVUM ANALYST INSIGHT, Revisiting the NIST Definition of Cloud Computing. Reference Code: OI00127-074
Publication Date: November 2011, Author: Laurent Lachal, © Copyright 2011 Ovum
OpenLabs LJMU Big Data Master Class 3

4. Resource Links Part Two
@HAStark
How many shades of blue is too many? (er, 42??)
http://www.slideshare.net/andrew_null/metrics-driven-design-by-joshua-porter
Paul Adams (ex-Google, now Facebook) on the shape of real life social networks
http://www.slideshare.net/padday/bridging-the-gap-between-our-online-and-offline-social-network
Total capital raised by games companies 2011
http://venturebeat.com/2012/01/06/deanbeat-game-companies-raised-a-record-breaking-1-55b-in-2011
Why putting stats into your product is the single best thing you can do – Mafia Wars lead
http://blog.betable.com/roger-dickeys-hacks-for-game-monetization/
Zynga’s head of analytics on analytics
http://tdwi.org/videos/2010/08/actionable-analytics-at-zynga-leveraging-big-data-to-make-online-games-more-fun-and-
social.aspx
Zynga infrastructure
http://code.zynga.com/2012/02/what-powers-play-at-zynga/
http://www.cloud.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=246:the-final-piece-of-zyngas-z-cloud-
revealed&Itemid=415
IsCool Facebook developer garage talk
http://www.facebookgarage.org.uk/talk/big-games-vs-big-data
Facebook Games Hack: Best Practices for Social Games on Facebook
Kinran
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10150404920517000
OpenLabs LJMU Big Data Master Class 4

5. Resource Links Part Two
@HAStark
Friends are the key to social games success, uh, no, new plan, make that strangers…
https://twitter.com/#!/Olifiers/status/139771382832709633
Sensible stuff about gamification from Sebastien Deterding
Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZGCPap7GkY
Slides http://www.slideshare.net/dings/meaningful-play-getting-gamification-right
Amazon’s A/B testing from Greg Linden (who designed their first recommendation engine)
http://glinden.blogspot.co.uk/2006/11/marissa-mayer-at-web-20.html
Andrew Chen on LTCV and lots of other interesting stuff
http://andrewchenblog.com/list-of-essays/
Eric Reis on Lean Startup
http://theleanstartup.com/
Avinash Kaushik on Making Love with Big Data
http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/big-data-imperative-driving-big-action/
Jon Radoff
book: Game On (supposedly on gamification that actually on social game design)
blog: http://radoff.com/
Kinran
OpenLabs LJMU Big Data Master Class 5