Data about data (metadata)

This isn’t exactly metadata, but some interesting facts about data has come to my attention. I am one that believes that just about anything you need info on can be found on the web, if you search hard enough. The statistics I came across tends to back that theory.

On Monday, researchers at the University of California evaluated, and contributed to, the information glut with the release of their report “How Much Information? 2003,” which pegs the quantity of new information stored in 2002 at 5 exabytes, or 5 quintillion bytes.

That, said researchers at U.C. Berkeley’s School of Information Management and Systems, amounts to the print collections of the Library of Congress–500,000 times over.

According to the article, there was 18 exabytes of data transmitted in the year of 2002. Most of it being transmitted over telephone networks and the data in the form of voice and data. The majority of data stored in 2002 was stored by magnetic media, mainly computer hard disks.

Source: CNET News.com