If you’re curious about how a totally different vertical—think location-based classifieds—can create streams of chaotic, semi-structured postings that put all those flexible-schema claims to the test, take a quick look at Backpage Novato. Exploring the constantly changing ads and free-form text there will give you a concrete feel for the messy, user-generated payloads a well-tuned data lake needs to parse, store, and secure.
