Dataclysm

TL;DR: Christian Rudder leverages the massive amount of data generated by his company, OKCupid, to draw wider conclusions and speculations about what Big Data tells us about what people really want (which is not necessarily the same as what they SAY they want).

For a while in the earlier days of OKCupid, Rudder published a series of fascinating blogs looking at different aspects of the data and drawing out all sorts of information, from what type of photos are found most attractive to what age preferences different genders have to racial attitudes based on profile descriptions and messages and lots more. These were entertaining and fascinating reads. The book is along the same lines although with updated data, but the topics and conclusions are basically the same and I was disappointed to find that if you'd followed his old blogs reasonably closely, there wasn't a lot new in the book. If you did NOT read the old blogs however you'll probably find a lot of interesting data here, presented in an easy to absorb way that does not require any kind of expertise in statistics or data analysis.

The various chapters are little snapshots of different aspects of humanity's collective psyche, revealing what we really want even when we don't necessarily admit it - or sometimes even know it. Some of the conclusions are depressing, some surprising, and all interesting. A note: this is best read in actual printed form (ie, not as an audiobook) due to the large number of charts and graphs.

Since the advent of the last decade, we have been awash in an ocean of data, but we have only just begun to chart the wind and tides, much less plumb the depths.

Christian Rudder's Dataclysm offers a few sharp insights into the power of Big Data both to analyse us in the aggregate and profile us on a personal level. Rudder's focus, mercifully for us, is on the aggregate, but whether we are gay or straight, pregnant or not, sexually active or celibate, or in the market for anything at al, we cannot hide our digitized identity.

The main focus of Rudder's book, however, is on what Big Data can tell about ourselves as a people not ourselves as persons, whether it's age preferences of men and women looking for dates, racial biases in the evaluation of attraction, disease trends, or pharmaceutical dangers. Even as Rudder celebrates the power of data to reveal truths about us hitherto inaccessible to the most sophisticated pollster, an undercurrent of anxiety about the manipulative power of large organizations in a world without privacy runs through the book. But now that we are all at sea, we must navigate as best we can.

Since the advent of the last decade, we have been awash in an ocean of data, but we have only just begun to chart the wind and tides, much less plumb the depths.

Christian Rudder's Dataclysm offers a few sharp insights into the power of Big Data both to analyse us in the aggregate and profile us on a personal level. Rudder's focus, mercifully for us, is on the aggregate, but whether we are gay or straight, pregnant or not, sexually active or celibate, or in the market for anything at al, we cannot hide our digitized identity.

The main focus of Rudder's book, however, is on what Big Data can tell about ourselves as a people not ourselves as persons, whether it's age preferences of men and women looking for dates, racial biases in the evaluation of attraction, disease trends, or pharmaceutical dangers. Even as Rudder celebrates the power of data to reveal truths about us hitherto inaccessible to the most sophisticated pollster, an undercurrent of anxiety about the manipulative power of large organizations in a world without privacy runs through the book. But now that we are all at sea, we must navigate as best we can.

You are concerned that the NSA is aggregating data and spying on you? If you check, or look at a picture of the NSA (Why does an office building need a radar dome on the roof?), you will see that has always been their job. But while you are worrying about that, you are telling scores of commercial data aggregators everything about yourself, just by what you search for on Google, what you like on Facebook and where you access the internet from. Your sex, your race, your sexual orientation, your income, your politics, your IQ (from the type of French fries you like), it's all an open book.
This book is the story from one involved nerd, along with some nice graphics.
People's activities are somewhat limited, so the use of this data is mostly to target you for repression or elimination in a repressive society, to sell you something in a capitalist society, or for law enforcement to find you. So if you're only getting targeted Amazon ads, be happy.
Of course, I can only imagine what the data will be used for after Skynet becomes active.