By Jaganathan Chelliah
With the turn of the century, the world has rapidly adapted to clicking more photographs and making even more videos. The idea has expanded with social media sponsoring digital content as a form of collaboration, promotion, advertisement, and more. This direct amplification has added immense value to digital data. Simply put, when a creator shoots for the merchandise of a particular brand and posts the photograph on social media to promote it, in addition to being monetarily rewarded, it also amplifies their fame and following. This rationale manifests that backing up the data is of utmost importance, and it is not simply good to do, but a must-do! Without proper backup, all individuals, and institutions – would lose their plan of work in hindsight.
Digital data’s big-bang expansion
To put the amount of data creation in perspective, it was estimated that by 2020 an average person would create 1.7 MB of data every second, which means 3.5 quintillion bytes of data is created each day in 2023. However, a quintillion is a measurement many of us have not even heard of. It is a million raised to the power of five.
Data expansion has also widened the scope of digital collaboration and, consequently, the earnings of content creators. For example, many digital content creators, today leverage their content platform to earn income through monetized content, affiliate marketing, merchandise, branded content, and from in-video ads.
In January 2022, there were nearly 150k professional content creators in India earning ~$200+ per month, while very few of these breakout stars are earning upwards of $100k per month. Notably, data creation using influencer marketing is estimated to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 25% over the next five years in India alone, even as the global industry itself is projected to become a ~USD 91bn industry by 2030 . It is an unprecedented opportunity.
Big amount of data, bigger responsibility
The world is creating data at an unprecedented scale. Right from an old photograph that brings out an avalanche of emotions to content creation that has become a source of earning, the pace of data creation is set to rampantly increase. However, in the process, we have stopped questioning the reliability of our devices. Per a study titled ‘Understanding Data Storage Habits of PC Users,’ conducted by Feedback Advisory, 52% of respondents have lost their data in the last 5 years in India.
But the question is, why are people reluctant to create backups? The answer is that they find backing up a time-consuming and arduous process.
However, it is vital to have a backup before it’s too late. Today, the market offers a vast variety of options including portable hard disk drives, which is a very convenient storage point. There are other options such as solid-state drives (SSDs), which offer much faster transfer speeds, and cloud storage that can be accessed from anywhere. Also, if a user wishes to save their data on a personal device, it too has become possible with a range of personal cloud devices available in the market.
So, the next time you blame your data loss on your bad fortune, you know who the real culprit is!
(The author is Senior Director, Marketing, India, Middle East, and TIA, Western Digital. Views expressed are personal and do not reflect the official position or policy of Financial Express Online. Reproducing this content without permission is prohibited.)