Google Gets the Flu
March 10, 2013
Google is an all-knowing Internet well-spring of knowledge. Within a few keystrokes and mouse clicks, nearly all the world’s information is at your fingertips. Or maybe not. If you have been browsing the Slashdot forums you might have spied this post called “When Google Got Flu Wrong:”
“When influenza hit early and hard in the United States this year, it quietly claimed an unacknowledged victim: one of the cutting-edge techniques being used to monitor the outbreak. A comparison with traditional surveillance data showed that Google Flu Trends, which estimates prevalence from flu-related Internet searches, had drastically overestimated peak flu levels. The glitch is no more than a temporary setback for a promising strategy, experts say, and Google is sure to refine its algorithms. But with flu-tracking techniques based on mining of web data and on social media taking off, Nature looks at how these potentially cheaper, faster methods measure up against traditional epidemiological surveillance networks.”
The real treat comes from the conversation threads. The comments want to know where Google extrapolated its data from and many believe Google will do better next time. One prominent point made was the “Chicken Little pandemic;” the US is a culture of fear and the only way to get people to comply is instilling fear about a falling sky. The end point is that Google is not always right and comments do not show the best side of humanity.
Whitney Grace, March 10, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
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Google Gets The Flu: Google is an all-knowing Internet well-spring of knowledge. Within a few keystrokes and m… http://t.co/ckzQHqflJC