
What Can Search Predict? - bjonathan
http://www.ysearchblog.com/2010/10/01/what-can-search-predict/
======
Terretta
This article startled me into checking its publication date. The claim is so
clearly obvious for the outlined applications (camera purchases, vacation
bookings, movie grosses), it seems unreasonable to think nobody was doing
this.

Here's an essay on "trendspotting", suggesting the concept came into vogue in
the late '90s:

<http://www.radosh.net/writing/trends.html>

And here's an article citing analysis of AltaVista query logs in 1998 (and
other query studies since):

<http://www.seobythesea.com/?p=224>

Perhaps because that was so hot at the time, folks I worked with in e-commerce
in the mid to late 90's assumed this is what search engines were doing with
their data -- data-mining it and selling the intelligence. Our reasoning was:
"Well, if the grocery stores can predict what to stock on the shelves and what
coupons to mail, surely the search engines can predict macro/economic/consumer
trends, and that data must be incredibly valuable. That must be where they're
getting their real revenue..."

But maybe they weren't. A month ago, PG suggested Yahoo was making too much
money from ads to bother improving commerce related results with "Revenue
Loop".

<http://www.paulgraham.com/yahoo.html>

Perhaps that held true of all the search engines? At least the idea was out
there before this Yahoo research coverage.

[http://www.usatoday.com/tech/techinvestor/2003-01-02-web-
mon...](http://www.usatoday.com/tech/techinvestor/2003-01-02-web-
monitoring_x.htm)

[http://www.pagetrafficblog.com/google-predicts-what-
searcher...](http://www.pagetrafficblog.com/google-predicts-what-searchers-
will-search-for-12-months-from-now/6851/)

[http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17050-innovation-
how-y...](http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17050-innovation-how-your-
search-queries-can-predict-the-future.html)

Hmm. Maybe Google is just a long-term ruse to collect data for a hedge fund
management AI.

