11/12/12 The Big Data Boom Is the Innovation Story of Our Time ‑ Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee ‑ The … 1/5 theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/11/the‑big‑data‑boom‑is‑the‑innovation‑story‑of‑our‑time/248215/ The Big Data Boom Is the Innovation Story of Our Time By Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee inShare [1] 346 Nov 21 2011, 9:50 AM ET 9 The data revolution has turned customers into unwitting business consultants, as our purchases and searches are tracked to improve everything from websites to delivery routes Dralo [2] /Shutterstock In the 1670s, in Delft, Netherlands, a scientist named Anton van Leeuwenhoek did something many scientists had done for 100 years before him. He built a microscope. This microscope was different, but it was not extraordinary. Like so many inventions, he borrowed and tweaked his predecessors' ingenuity. But when he looked through this microscope, he found things that did seem extraordinary. He