Matthias Hagen of the Bauhaus Universität Weimar is now the first full big data professor in Germany. Prof. Hagen is leading a group of researchers financed by the Ministry of Education and his own professorship is sponsored by a group of regional companies. His goal is to develop new methods of data analysis, specifically how to improve the search engine recommendations.
Improving the user experience of search engines requires immense quantities of data, quantities that are not easily retrievable unless you are Google. As a result their aim is to simulate the ideal user, a simulation that culminated in netspeak.org.
