The latest tiff between web lords Google and Facebook indicates the potential behind big data these days, with Facebook making up a list of 40 approved ad providers for developers, intentionally excluding Google from it. The stakes are enormous in this case, since ad spending on Facebook will more than double to $4.05 billion this year, and Google is forbidden to take part in the social ad game.

Data markets and real time sharing trends, which are powering search, are gaining importance. A pertinent example that everyone can relate to is Twitter’s rise to the top, leveraging its real-time content for immediate, but unfettered search results.  There’s of course Facebook, which is gaining big money in the search market by analyzing big data as it pertains to individuals’ social graphs.

But while Facebook is tapping the social scheme for search purposes, Google’s applying its big data analytics to a range of things. Their partnership between Edgenet, which manages data feeds from product suppliers and distributors, as well as retailers, and Google is expected to refine the product search experience and the offline shopping experience in itself. The partnership has a strong advertising component as well, and Google is using big data to improve at its best product search.

Even HP sees value in big data, recently starting the procedure to acquire Vertica to enhance its data optimization offerings portfolio with real-time, large-scale analytics. Competitor Dell launched today the ‘hyperscale-inspired server’ named PowerEdge C6145, intended for high-performance computing applications such as video rendering, virtualization, and electronic design automation.

EMC will pleasantly surprise everyone by introducing a free edition of the EMC Greenplum Database, ‘empowering large numbers of developers, data scientists, and other data professionals’. As EMC noted, the amount of data amassed by consumers and businesses is expected to increase by 44 times in this decade alone.  More and more sectors turn to cloud management, from medical information, to online videos and photos and security and video surveillance, and search is a big part of this shift, touching all points of the big data revolution.  The times are changing, and any company operating within the cloud must adapt their products and services accordingly. This is the perfect timing for startups to give their best, finding optimal ways to enter this emerging data marketplace.