For someone like me, this is pretty interesting. The rest of you may not care but the fact that Google is using search terms as indicators for flu activity throughout the country is pretty interesting. When you think about it, it makes sense that when people feel sick they'll google terms like "flu" or "flu symptoms" and so on. I could imagine WEBMD doing something similar. Google knows where (you're located), when (you searched), and what (your term is) so they should be able to easily come up with some sort of prediction system that won't be 100% accurate but an interesting application of the data that they collect. They even cross-reference CDC reports (that lagged the Google indicators). Interesting stuff.
Check out their U.S. Flu Activity Graph.
2 comments:
Well I hope Google can also cyberly (not sure if that's a word) recommend what to take to get rid of the flu-like symptoms.
The power of their search is at your fingertips ;-)
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