The global data supply reached 2.8 zettabytes (ZB) in 2012 – or 2.8 trillion GB – but just 0.5% of this is used for analysis, according to the Digital Universe Study.

Volumes of data are projected to reach 40ZB by 2020, or 5.25 GB per person, with emerging economies accounting for an increasingly large proportion of the world’s total.

The report also contained a warning on data security, with levels of protection shown to be lagging behind the expansion in volume. In 2012 less than a fifth of the world’s data was protected, despite 35% requiring such measures.

via Study: less than 1% of the world’s data is analysed, over 80% is unprotected | News | guardian.co.uk.

Dealing with “Big Data” is a challenge for many marketers, but its rise in importance is pushing more and more to use it. According to research from IBM and the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford, the main objective for companies worldwide is to use the data to achieve customer-centric outcomes.

Nearly half of IT and business professionals reported that as their primary goal for Big Data this year. That was more than twice the number who cited operational optimization, with other objectives even farther behind.

via Companies Focus on Customers When Harnessing ‘Big Data’ – eMarketer.

Travel marketers are flocking to develop mobile solutions as more and more of their customers carry around smartphones and tablets. The travel business is highly focused on mobile bookings, but research shows that many consumers are still not ready to make large travel purchases via mobile devices.

via Mobile Travel Bookings Catch On at Destination Level – eMarketer.

Mobile social media use in France began to heat up in spring 2012 during the country’s presidential race. As politicians sought to gain advantages, especially on microblogs, they drew in more constituents, ultimately spurring greater social use on these newer platforms.Social networks in France have since taken advantage of this increased mobile engagement, with Twitter and LinkedIn especially making significant strides. Between June 2011 and 2012, Twitter saw a 117% bump in mobile access in the country, according to data from comScore MobiLens. LinkedIn made an even bigger leap of 125% during the year.

via In France, Strong Mobile Push by LinkedIn, Twitter – eMarketer.

Now, I’m not recanting anything I’ve previously said or written about personas. Detailed personas are valuable, provided they’re properly researched and used, and especially when a website needs to serve a variety of very different populations. Unfortunately, I tend to see detailed personas (just like “George”) that are invented — rarely researched and never tested. That’s not good enough. The whole point behind the persona development process is to test and verify what we think we know about our market. If you can’t stick to the full persona development process (I get it — it takes more time than we usually have), don’t make them up. You’re better off generalizing your personas in terms of one specific behavior, because no matter how detailed a persona may be, it cannot do its job without being framed in terms of buying. The good news is that the four stages of the buying cycle represent four personas that everyone doing marketing on the web has in common.

via Creating Website Content for Buying Cycle Personas.

Offline, people spend approximately 30-40 percent of their time talking about themselves, but on social media sites that number jumps to 80 percent. So it’s no wonder these channels are so hard to resist, as they’re all about you.

And you. And you. And you.

This infographic takes a closer look at social media’s effect on the brain

via This Is Your Brain On Social Media [INFOGRAPHIC] – AllTwitter.

The amount of data being generated on a daily basis by people and machines (the “digital universe”) is expanding at a rapid rate, providing a mass of Big Data potential, according to a new IDC study sponsored by EMC. The study concludes that 2.8 zettabytes (ZB) of data will be created and replicated this year. (1 ZB = 1021 bytes.) Of all that data, the researchers suggest that slightly less than one-quarter would be useful were it to be tagged and analyzed. But, just 3% is tagged and only 0.5% is analyzed, leaving what the study dubs “the untapped big data gap.”

via Just 0.5% of the World’s Massive Trove of Online Data is Being Analyzed.

With two-thirds of the US internet population expected to belong to a social network by the end of 2013, according to eMarketer estimates, the majority of brands are now actively using social media to manage their digital presence.

Q3 2012 findings from media buying and solutions provider STRATA showed 91.9% of those surveyed were using social media. The vast majority (82.4%) of US agencies reported using Facebook for clients’ social media campaigns, nearly double or more the number using the popular platforms YouTube (41.9%), Twitter (36.5%) and LinkedIn (23%).

via Marketing Interest in Pinterest, Google+ Climbs – eMarketer.

Let’s get two things straight. First, journalists are genuinely busy. The reason I get about 60 emails per day is that I am freelance; were I on the staff of one of the Nationals instead it would be hundreds. So calling on the same day really, really isn’t clever. In recent weeks I’ve even had people phone within two minutes of sending the release – so the response, reasonably enough, is that I haven’t yet read it. The second thing is that we’re miserable, self-important curmudgeons. Oh come on, we earn a living by getting our name in print, you think deep down we’re modest people? So the chance to terminate a call by demonstrating we’re too busy to talk is often too good to resist.

via Guy Clapperton.

India is on the cusp of a full-fledged digital revolution, but substantial obstacles remain, according to a new eMarketer report, “India Online: Defining the New ‘Digital Class.’” Right now the country can best be described as a place of vast, untapped potential. Internet penetration in India remains quite low, at just under 9% of the population, but due to the country’s massive population, it trails only the US and China in terms of total internet users.

via Smartphones Speed the Digital Revolution in India – eMarketer.