New York Times today featured a news story on Google’s Flu Tracker. The logic is that when people feel they are coming down with the flu, they go to Google to check the symptoms before calling their doctor. Google will use aggregated search data based on certain keywords to track these trends. Gathering this data is much faster than collecting information from patient visits and phone call inquiries to hospitals.
The New York Times report states: “Tests of the new Web tool from Google.org, the company’s philanthropic unit, suggest that it may be able to detect regional outbreaks of the flu a week to 10 days before they are reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”
The flu tracker allows you to view trends by state and provides different alert levels depending on the rising searches for flu symptoms. You can also download raw data on current and historical flu trends.
More vertical search engines should start thinking about employing the use of timely data for the common good.
- Arpana
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