Forget Big Data, Small Data is the Real Revolution
There is a lot of talk about “big data” at the moment. For example, this is Big Data Week, which will see events about big data in dozens of cities around the world. But the discussions around big data miss a much bigger and more important picture: the real opportunity is not big data, but small data. Not centralized “big iron”, but decentralized data wrangling. Not “one ring to rule them all” but “small pieces loosely joined”.
http://blog.okfn.org/2013/04/22/forget-big-data-small-data-is-the-real-revolution/