We’ve fished these headlines out fresh from the big data pool:

1. Did you know that the data-driven marketing service sector employs 676,000 people? Or that big data marketing was a 156 billion dollar business in 2012? These and other interesting data points came out in a recent industry survey. [Ad Age]

2. ”Do You Want to Know What Will Kill You?” Salon’s Elizabeth Murphy profiles her experience with paying the $99 for a 23andme report. In the end, she comes close to agreeing with Duke professor Don Taylor, who says, “It’s possible the best thing you can do is burn that damn report and never think of it again.” [Salon]

3. Amazon is scaling back its book publishing operations. [Slate]

4. The NBA is launching a big data initiative centered on video ads. “Just as baseball bloggers have long embraced data as content, the NBA and other sports marketers are increasingly leveraging stats using technology.” [Ad Week]

5. Finally, Nate Silver is still not up and running on ESPN, but he published an in depth piece this week on Grantland about “6 Big Takeaways from the Government Shutdown.” The key point: “The polling data on the shutdown is not yet all that useful, and we lack data on most important measures of voter preferences.” [Grantland]