
Google Flu Trends: Track the Spread of Influenza in Your State - mqt
http://www.google.org/flutrends/
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Anon84
Dupe: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=361040>

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ntoshev
Monitoring social trends this way is very cool. I wonder if they could help
predict things like consumer confidence index similarly.

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albertcardona
Unfortunately, the information is after-the-fact.

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streety
<http://www.google.org/about/flutrends/how.html>

"So why bother with estimates from aggregated search queries? It turns out
that traditional flu surveillance systems take 1-2 weeks to collect and
release surveillance data, but Google search queries can be automatically
counted very quickly. By making our flu estimates available each day, Google
Flu Trends may provide an early-warning system for outbreaks of influenza."

Sounds as though it could still be useful. Not that there is much you can do
in response.

