Information Nation, indeed!
by Pete Gerr on January 19, 2010
In 2008 Americans consumed 3.6 Zettabytes (that’s 10 to the 21st power bytes or 3,600,000,000,000 Gigabytes, of information. That’s equivalent to filling 14.5 Million hard drives of an average 250GB capacity. The most shocking fact? This measurement ONLY represents information “consumed”, not created, and doesn’t include work-related information, only personal or at-home usage.
Who measures such things? The University of California at San Diego does, specifically, their Global Information Industry Center (GIIC).
Now, for storage industry types, we typically sell to corporations, not consumers, though for many vendors, like HDS and Hitachi, Ltd, that model is shifting. In fact, I learned something earlier today about Hitachi’s consumer product line, SimpleTech I thought was cool – literally. Hitachi’s SimpleTech (re)Drive is designed using bamboo (for cooling) and aluminum and has no internal (and noisy) fan for cooling. Energy Star rated. Check it out.
Since the GIIC study doesn’t include corporate data, it’s counting family photographs, YouTube and other video, and most predominantly, video games. The study also includes non-digital media like TV, newspapers (what are those?!), and radio information, so it’s a bit skewed, but the figures are still mind-boggling. And of course, we’re just getting started.
(c) Reed Business Information Ltd.
I’m a life-long gamer as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, and have always tracked the video game industry as one barometer of technology adoption and for what’s coming next to the mainstream market. Though it endured a disappointing year overall in 2009, December was the most successful single month in the history of the video game industry according to NPD. $5.5 Billion in sales in a single month, and nearly $20B for the entire year, and that’s in the US only! More of us are doing more gaming, more gaming online, and increasingly, it’s multi-generational (30-somethings like me are playing with our kids).
I expect when the 2010 report comes out, we’ll see more astronomically large numbers, and the accelerating shift away from traditional media (newspapers and network TV) to online media, on-demand programming like Hulu, and an impact from the explosion of “smartphones”, which I wrote about last week.
One topic the study covers is referred to as “dark data”, or information that flows between machines without human interaction or intervention. Dark data creation or consumption isn’t captured in the study, but I suspect will begin to get tracked or estimated in coming years. Given the way computing power, CPUs, networking, etc. is everywhere and in everything from appliances to automobiles to sneakers, dark data creation may very well eclipse the amount of data humans create and consume very soon.
If you’re interested in reading the entire report, download it here, and contribute to next year’s study. 
Also, if you’re interested, the GIIC site also has a nicely-produced “Timeline of the History of Information“. More (digital) grist for the mill…
Having spent the past 13+ years in the corporate storage industry, the consumer storage market increasingly fascinates me, though I think the real opportunity is more likely to be “in the cloud” than as a desktop device.
What do you think?
What has been the biggest shift in your own life or business away from “traditional” forms of media to digital, or online information consumption?
Did you make a change in 2009, perhaps backup-to-the-cloud, that worked well or didn’t?
What’s next? Hope to hear from you.
Comments (5 )
Amy on 19 Jan 2010 at 7:33 pm
Hi Pete,
That is pretty unbelievable. It’s pretty cool that your profession – in a way – can be melded into your hobby.
What scares me about the robo-world that we live in, at least as a writer, is that the days of curling up with a novel may be replaced by e-books! Also, there is still a need for human interaction, for talking face to face, no?
Thanks for writing and sharing, Pete.
Amy
Pete Gerr on 19 Jan 2010 at 7:41 pm
Hey Amy,
Great to hear from you, thanks for taking the time to visit and read.
You know, I think technology advances in waves, or maybe in sort of loops, because as “advanced” as parts of our world have become, most people I know still retain some remnants of their less-advance past.
For instance, I’ve tried probably two dozen different applications on my Mac, on my iPhone for note-taking, list-making, to dos, etc. Many of them are awesome, but sometimes, many times, I still find the process of sitting down with a pen and paper and making a list, and then crossing items off as I complete them is most effective (and rewarding!).
I too think about and worry how human-to-human interaction will be effected, some say the internet is breeding a generation of anti-social kids. I say it depends on your perspective. If it weren’t for Facebook, I probably wouldn’t have gotten back in touch with any of my old acquaintances from High School or College. With my iPhone and our daughter’s phone we can text each other, even if it’s just to say “hi” when she’s in school. It’s like I could drop by the school and say “hi”. So I think it all depends on what you’re comparing “the new normal” to.
Anyway, thanks again for writing, and hope we can exchange more ideas.
Pete
PhillDoc on 13 Feb 2010 at 2:38 pm
Great blog as for me. It would be great to read a bit more about this theme. Thnx for posting that material.
Pete Gerr on 14 Feb 2010 at 10:19 am
Hi PhillDoc,
and thanks, very much, for taking the time to read and to post a comment. I’ll definitely be writing much more on this theme, in fact, the main thrust of my blog is that “data drives our world, and information is its currency”; in future posts, I’ll be spending more time exploring this premise as it relates to different industries (healthcare and the evolution to electronic medical records and digital imaging, for example). If you’re interested, my very first post, linked here, sets the stage for my writing and research, which I’ve been tracking for nearly 10 years now. Thanks again! http://blogs.hds.com/pete/2009/11/the-art-of-information.html#more-10
Pete
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