Purpose Data mining along with its varied technologies like numerical mining, textual mining, multimedia mining, web mining, sentiment analysis and big data mining proves itself as an emerging field and manifests itself in the form of different techniques such as information mining; big data mining; big data mining and Internet of Things (IoT); and educational data mining. This paper aims to discuss how these technologies and techniques are used to derive information and, eventually, knowledge from data. Design/methodology/approach An extensive review of literature on data mining and its allied techniques was carried to ascertain the emerging procedures and techniques in the domain of data mining. Clarivate Analytic’s Web of Science and Sciverse Scopus were explored to discover the extent of literature published on Data Mining and its varied facets. Literature was searched against various keywords such as data mining; information mining; big data; big data and IoT; and educational data mining. Further, the works citing the literature on data mining were also explored to visualize a broad gamut of emerging techniques about this growing field. Findings The study validates that knowledge discovery in databases has rendered data mining as an emerging field; the data present in these databases paves the way for data mining techniques and analytics. This paper provides a unique view about the usage of data, and logical patterns derived from it, how new procedures, algorithms and mining techniques are being continuously upgraded for their multipurpose use for the betterment of human life and experiences. Practical implications The paper highlights different aspects of data mining, its different technological approaches, and how these emerging data technologies are used to derive logical insights from data and make data more meaningful. Originality/value The paper tries to highlight the current trends and facets of data mining.