Tietomassat

Tietomassat is a Finnish term used to describe large and growing bodies of information in digital environments. It is formed from tieto, meaning information, and massa, meaning mass, and is analogous to the English expression data mass or data deluge. In Finnish academic and professional usage, tietomassat refer to the cumulative, often unstructured data generated, stored, and accessed in modern information ecosystems.

These information masses arise from multiple sources: corporate databases, cloud services, social media, sensor networks, scientific experiments, and web content. They are typically characterized by high volume and variety, rapid generation, and varying quality, making discovery, analysis, and governance challenging. The concept highlights the scale of data that organizations must manage beyond traditional information management practices.

Handling tietomassat requires data governance, metadata management, data integration, and robust storage and processing infrastructure. It also raises concerns about privacy, security, data ownership, and cost. Analysts seek ways to extract actionable insights through search, indexing, machine learning, and data virtualization, while archivists and librarians address long-term preservation.

Critics note that tietomassat is a broad, sometimes vague label for many different phenomena in the information ecosystem, and that precise definitions depend on context and discipline.

See also: data deluge, big data, information overload, data governance.