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Google Can Predict the Flu
An anonymous reader mentions Google Flu Trends, a newly unveiled initiative of Google.org, Google's philanthropic arm. The claim is that this Web service, which aggregates search data to track outbreaks of influenza, can spot disease trends up to 2 weeks before Centers for Disease Control data can. The NYTimes writeup begins: "What if Google knew before anyone else that a fast-spreading flu outbreak was putting you at heightened risk of getting sick? And what if it could alert you, your doctor and your local public health officials before the muscle aches and chills kicked in? That, in essence, is the promise of Google Flu Trends, a new Web tool ... unveiled on Tuesday, right at the start of flu season in the US. Google Flu Trends is based on the simple idea that people who are feeling sick will tend to turn to the Web for information, typing things like 'flu symptoms; or 'muscle aches' into Google. The service tracks such queries and charts their ebb and flow, broken down by regions and states."
Buy stock in companies that sell treatments for Beri-Beri, Trench Foot, and Jungle Rot, and then have your botnet look them on on google.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Do to the /. effect thousands of /.ers started googling flu symptoms causing the predictor to indicate a flu outbreak.
Thousands of hypochondriacs responded by checking themselves into hospitals complaining about flu-like symptoms.
As a capitalist, and an incubator, I've spent tens of thousands of dollars (per project) on market analyses. For me, finding if a particular good or service, even a niche or very specific on, is desired in a given area is expensive. It's often the MOST expensive thing I do before starting a business.
I've always harbored the idea that Google's grasp of data, even just raw data, is their most important resource. As they make this information available, the market will prosper. I've been able to use Google Trends (national, not local) to profit from the so-called "long-tail" and enter a business market I might otherwise not have.
When Google starts making trend data available based on region, it will be a huge boon for guys like me -- the risk takers. I'd love to know if a certain term is growing in popularity in given regions, or even in given regions at certain times (say "Where can I get vegan food?" in Chicago after 10pm but before 4am). I'd love to know if it's from a desktop or mobile, or even a Mac versus PC. By digging deeper into a customer-base's desire, Google trending can offer me a profitable business, but it can also offer the customer base more competition (or even a product that isn't readily available in their market).
The flu trending is just an eyewash to push Google's strength in raw data retention over time. That's their reason for doing it. Will it help people? Certainly. But to those anti-capitalists, this is exactly where capitalism reaches those in need, but still can provide a profit for the charitable person or company.
It doesn't predict anything reliably. Too many variables.
Simply put: If you're looking for help online for flu symptoms, that doesn't correlate with an 'outbreak' of flu.
And what defines outbreak anyway?
Well, the way flu works, if you have it, you're likely to give it to someone else. You may google about it when you don't actually have it, but how often does that happen? The number of false positive searches would probably be somewhat low, and either way they would be constant. Google serves millions of search results a day, if not more. Almost everything "random" would, over time, look constant. When non-random things happen, like people from a certain region (remember, google knows your IP) getting the flu, even a 1% increase in flu related searches is extremely significant, if it otherwise doesn't vary that much.
YOU googling for flu symptoms doesn't necessarily indicate if you have the flu, but a large increase in the number of people googling it probably does. Especially if you can compare your data to the CDC data, to check your theories.
-Taylor
Worldwide Military budgets: $2100 billion. Worldwide Space Exploration budgets: $38 billion. Really, world? Really?
That's why we have a "flu season." It is very cyclic in nature. Trends will very likely be a good indicator when localized spikes of new queries provide a precursor where a previous trend can further enforce.
In other words, a spike of localized searches related to flu falling well within flu season for a given geographic locale, likely is a precursor to a growing flu outbreak. It's really not that hard to imagine - especially once you consider the incubation time of your typical flu virus.
The lead time prediction of Google's method verses the CDC's post-suffering reporting is easy to guess. The CDC's numbers measure reported cases. Google's method measures localized interest (signal), develop a metric to discern against baseline interest (noise), and apply against trend data (signal has velocity), you likely have identified a growing flu outbreak. Once you add the incubation time, it's likely Google's numbers have a strong correlation with the reported CDC numbers.