Big Data 2016: Top Influencers and Brands

Onalytica, a firm which specializes in social network analysis and influencer relationship software, recently released their latest Top 100 Big Data Influencers and Brands Report. The report not only lists the top 100 in each category but also graphically explores the relationships between them. As would be expected of an organization which specializes in this kind of data analysis, Onalytica has also shared their selection methodology in this informative blog post.

The report's website shares a list of the top 50 in each category (influencers and brands), while the downloadable full report contains the top 100. As a taste of what to expect, here is a list of the Top 20 Influencers:

Rank	Twitter Handle	Name	Company	Influencer Score
1	@KirkDBorne	Kirk Borne	Booz Allen Hamilton	100
2	@craigbrownphd	Craig Brown, Ph.D.	Consultant	86.15
3	@Ronald_vanLoon	Ronald van Loon	Advertisement	31.46
4	@kdnuggets	Gregory Piatetsky	KDnuggets	26.29
5	@EvanSinar	Evan Sinar	Development Dimensions International	23.57
6	@JimHarris	Jim Harris	Strategic Advantage	22.82
7	@bobehayes	Bob E. Hayes, PhD	AnalyticsWeek	22.57
8	@billfranksga	Bill Franks	Analytics Consulting	14.35
9	@VanRijmenam	Mark van Rijmenam	Datafloq	12.67
10	@simonlporter	Simon Porter	IBM	11.03
11	@insideBigData	Richard Brueckner	insideHPC Media	10.75
12	@DiegoKuonen	Dr. Diego Kuonen	Statoo Consulting	10.58
13	@GilPress	Gil Press	gPress	9.6
14	@robertoglezcano	Roberto A. González	San Pablo University	8.95
15	@schmarzo	Bill Schmarzo	EMC	8.46
16	@dr_morton	Morten Middelfart	Genomic Expression Inc	8.18
17	@jladley	John Ladley	First San Francisco Partners	7.34
18	@tamaradull	Tamara Dull	SAS	7.14
19	@delizalde	Daniel Elizalde	Stem	6.7
20	@EXAGolo	Mathias Golombek	EXASOL	6.1

Below is a graph of the relationships between the top influencers (a similar graph exists on Onalytica's website for top brands). Click to enlarge.


Top Influencer Relationships Graph (click to enlarge).

Onalytica also reached out to some of the top influencers for exclusive insight into what 2016 may hold for Big Data, and included some of this feedback as quotes. Kirk Borne, Principal Data Scientist with Booz Allen Hamilton and #1 ranked influencer, had this to say:

Big Data has moved beyond its original hype phase, and even beyond its concept phase, and is now entering the productization and monetization phase. Every organization that is collecting vast sums of data now see that as an asset to generate better outcomes: new discoveries, improved decisions, and innovative products.

Richard Bruekner, President of InsideHPC Media, shares the following:

When I first started writing about Big Data some five years ago, I thought it was about the search for a needle in a haystack. Now it’s clear to me that breakthrough analytic discoveries often have little to do with what you thought you were looking for.

And KDnuggets' own Gregory Piatetsky-Shapiro had the following to say:

Big Data, GPUs, and better algorithms will make 2016 a breakout year for Deep Learning, which will achieve human or superhuman performance in many areas, with a focus on speech, image, and video recognition and analysis.

There is much more exclusive insight shared on Onalytics site, so visit and have a look for yourself. You might even find another KDnuggets writer included further on down the list.

A list of the top 20 brands follows:

Rank	Twitter Handle	Name	Influencer Score
1	@purematter	PureMatter	39.6
2	@ThingsExpo	@ThingsExpo	38.89
3	@InformationWeek	InformationWeek	19.73
4	@Datafloq	Datafloq	18.82
5	@insideHPC	insideHPC.com	17.14
6	@adversitement	Adversitement	14.43
7	@techreview	MIT Tech Review	12.25
8	@SmartDataCo	SmartData Collective	11.89
9	@datanami	Datanami	10.45
10	@ca4it	CA4IT	10.42
11	@theCUBE	theCUBE	10.37
12	@cloudera	Cloudera	10.26
13	@BridgeWorksLtd	BridgeWorks	10.05
14	@CloudExpo	CloudEXPO	9.72
15	@Data_Informed	Data Informed	9.71
16	@Oracle	Oracle	9.49
17	@IDCAP	IDC Asia Pacific	9.19
18	@AllAnalytics	All Analytics	9.07
19	@HPAutonomy	HP Autonomy	8.83
20	@InformaticaCorp	Informatica Corp.	8.61

The full report can be downloaded from Onalytica's website.

Bio: Matthew Mayo is a computer science graduate student currently working on his thesis parallelizing machine learning algorithms. He is also a student of data mining, a data enthusiast, and an aspiring machine learning scientist.

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