

Google’s Crystal Ball  - danso
http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/20/googles-crystal-ball/

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leto
One confounding variable here might be the fact that conservatives are
actually less likely to use Google. There has been a strong backlash that I've
seen personally, where conservative members of my family actively encourage me
to stop using Google because it's in some way "liberally biased" and that it
has a "hidden political agenda" and is trying to "impose its radical views on
the world." I'm not making this up, there are even books on this very subject.
One example is "Search and Destroy."

Google has an advantage in mindshare in that it's effectively the "default"
search engine on the web, but its population is still, to a degree, self-
selecting. Whether this effect is pronounced enough to skew the data, I can't
say.

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brown9-2
Just curious - what search engine, if any, do your relatives recommend you use
instead?

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polemic
Counter point:

<http://xkcd.com/1122/>

It's an interesting hypothesis, but it would have to be tested over a large
number of elections before you could claim any statistical link.

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stretchwithme
All this energy to figure out what people will think on a particular day. And
so much energy spent trying to manipulate their opinion as that day
approaches. We should be figuring out how to make the system better respond to
what people think all the time, just as entrepreneurs do in any industry.

Yes, people try to influence us when we are at decision points. But many
things are about long term relationships and trust. Shouldn't we be striving
for that?

Its a bit absurd that we cannot change our minds later. Wouldn't having that
ability make politicians more honest?

I'd prefer to see proportional representation in both the legislative and
executive branches (Switzerland does it) PLUS the ability to change who
represents me whenever I want. We have much better technology now, so
shouldn't we use it to make our electoral decisions more effectively?

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dcalacci
I think he hints at the concept that, because of the emergence of the
internet, certain statistical analyses may now be redundant, or worse yet, not
actually accurate. If the average voters' feelings can be adequately captured
using aggregate search data, what other types of polling can be augmented or
replaced with data from Google, or Facebook, or Twitter?

Pure statistical analysis and true polling will probably never be replaced,
due to their sheer importance and applicability, so I'm not trying to suggest
that people start using Google data rather than creating their own surveys.
But I'm certain that there exist some academic researchers who would leap at
the idea of using [Aggregate Facebook Statuses, 2010-2011] as a source for
their next piece of research.

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waterlesscloud
If people start paying serious attention to this sort of analysis, motivated
parties will begin to manipulate the data.

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brown9-2
What would be the point of manipulating the data used to make a prediction?
How would that influence the final event - the number of votes cast?

Seems like if you have the ability or money to influence the search traffic,
you could find plenty of other areas related to the election where you would
get a higher rate of return.

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waterlesscloud
Political entities try to create an air of inevitability for their eventual
victory. You can see this at work right now in the spinning of various polls.

Manipulating the data used to create a prediction is a variation on that
theme. If they could reliably do it, they would.

Influencing search traffic statistics could be done pretty low-cost, so the
return wouldn't have to be that high.

It's all part of the gestalt they try to build anyway.

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bo1024
That's really cool.

Polls are pretty useless. I'm a fan of using prediction markets like betfair
to figure out what's going on. When people stake money on an opinion, it gives
it a lot more weight.

For awesome analysis on prediction markets and the elections, check out the
signal: <http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/signal/>

~~~
Evbn
Where do you think bettors in prediction markets get their data?

Compare the market price on Obama to what Fivethirtyeight estimates based on
poll data. Pretty close.

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jojopotato
Does he say what Google search data he is looking at or where he got it?

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Tobu
Search trends, presumably:
[https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=voter%20registration...](https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=voter%20registration&geo=US&cmpt=q)

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pranjalv123
If Google searches can predict election outcomes this well, imagine what they
can do for the stock market...

