What Cars Did for Today’s World, Data May Do for Tomorrow’s – New York Times

Today’s dominant industrial ecosystem is relentlessly acquiring and processing digital information. It demands newer and better ways of collecting, shipping, and processing data, much the way cars needed better road building. And it’s spinning out its own unseen businesses.

Every Datum Tells a Story: The dawning of the age of meta-information – City Journal

computer and software experts gather at conferences to talk about how big and unprecedented the numbers are, how the concept of “big data” changes everything.