Data is all around us
1. Data is all around us
Welcome back! In this video, we'll find out what data looks like and where we can find it.2. What is data?
When you think of data, you probably think of something like this: a table with a lot of numbers. Or maybe you have some kind of graph in your mind. While this is one of the most common forms of data, there are also forms you might not immediately consider.3. Data comes in all shapes and sizes
Take images and text, for example. Digital images have many tiny pixels, each with its color value. These pixels and their color values can be used as data to detect what can be seen on the image automatically. Social media posts, emails, and reviews are all text that can be analyzed to answer specific questions. For example, we could do a Twitter analysis of a soccer match to find out whether people found the match exciting or not at all by looking at the words they used and their frequency.4. Data comes in all shapes and sizes
Other forms of data include network and spatial data. Network data can answer questions like "Are many social connections linked to happiness?" Or spatial data, which can be used to answer questions such as: "Where is the best place to open a new coffee shop?"5. Data sources: open data
Nowadays a lot of data is publicly available. This is especially the case with government or non-profit data. Your local government likely also provides data on social or economic topics on their website. APIs are another good source of data. APIs act as go-between to collect specific data on the Internet. The Twitter API for example, allows you to quickly and easily collect tweets about a certain subject.6. Data sources: internal data
Another important data source is internal data. This is data that is shared to you or your business under specific conditions. This data is not publicly available, and typically is protected by privacy regulations. For example: customer data, like age, or how long they have been a customer. Transaction data, like the sales number for a certain product. Data can also come from a website, like the number of visitors each day or which part of the website gets the most clicks. Lastly, surveys could be used to gain specific data on a certain topic, for example, satisfaction with a specific product or service.7. Let's practice!
Now that you know how to recognize data and find good data sources, let's practice!Create Your Free Account
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