Overview of streaming data

Streaming data refers to data generated in a continuous stream and accessed in a sequential, piece-by-piece manner. Much of the data the average Internet user accesses is streamed, including video and audio channels, or text and image data on social media sites. Streaming data is the preferred method when the data is new and changing quickly, or when large data collections are sought.

Streamed data is often ideal for data science research because it generally exists in large quantities and raw format. Much public streaming data is available for free and supported by Java APIs. In this chapter, we are going to examine how to acquire data from streaming sources, including Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube. Despite the use of different techniques and APIs, you will notice similarities between the techniques used to pull data from these sites.