“…The four big Vs are: Velocity, because it’s ‘live’ and coming in all the time, e.g. Twitter, Flickr; Variety, because there’s so many different kinds, from images (YouTube), to text (blogs), to numbers (transactions, automated logs); Veracity, because it’s uncertain or imprecise and we don’t always know what’s there; and Volume, because there’s so much of it, it’s big. In a nutshell: high volume, high variety and high velocity. To this list, big data has also been discussed in relation to its clear versatility, volatility, virtuosity, vitality, visionary, vigour, viability, vibrancy, and even virility. (The letter ‘v’ must have increased its value due the recent hysteria related to it.)

Other less enthusiastic versions of this v-dimensionality might be that big data is also: valueless, vampire-like, venomous, vulgar, violating and very violent. I am not a fan of the term. It is too full of commercial management-speak for my liking. It misses what is important to me as a social researcher, which is about making more visible where the power networks lie – pun intended …”

and more interesting reflections in this paper
Focus: Big Data, Little Questions?
by Emma Uprichard, University of Warwick

http://www.discoversociety.org/2013/10/01/focus-big-data-little-questions/