2013 Review: The biggest buzzwords

We asked contributors to share their thoughts on the biggest buzzwords of 2013, and the word cloud above displays the frequency of the responses we received. Unsurprisingly, the term that kept on cropping up was: big data.

Data buzz

As we discovered in yesterday’s biggest developments review, big data has been a hot topic in 2013. The below Google Trends graph demonstrates its meteroic rise in public interest since the end of last year.

Here’s what our contributors said about it:

“Much was made of words like ‘selfie’ and ‘twerking’, however the most bandied about words for 2013 (and not for the first time) in MR were ‘Big’ and ‘Data’. Big data is not a new thing – indeed I wrote about the data deluge back in 2010 – however the need to speak knowledgably about big data continues unabated. Perhaps 2014 will be the year where we get to a common theme/definition, and eradicate the various factions: wide data, deep data, long data – but perhaps more importantly, there will come a recognition that it’s just data, and it’s surely our job to just work out what to do with it!”Andrew Wiseman, ICM

“Big Data without a doubt, and it will continue to be a big topic in the future. Too much money, thinking, and tech is happening in that arena for it not to be.”Leonard Murphy, GreenBook Blog

“That’s easy. BIG DATA, not even close. Please make it stop.”Steve August, Revelation Global.

Mobile

Another popular buzzword among contributors was mobile. Those who explained their choice linked it to smartphones and the subsequent connotations for surveying:

“Ever since 2007 when the iPhone came out, every year is the year of ‘mobile’.”David Shim, Placed

Staying neutral

Related to this were terms like platform neutral and device agnostic, which underline the current importance of designing surveys to run on any device:

“Platform Neutral – getting surveys working across different devices – is something I have heard a lot.” JonPuleston, GMI

Tomorrow’s review article will look at our contributors’ thoughts on the biggest disappointments of 2013.

• Word cloud generated at www.jasondavies.com/wordcloud/