The concept behind Google’s newest claim to fame ‘Google Flu Trends’ is a bit far fetched if you ask us, but as ridiculous as it may sound – it is actually feasible!

It’s a model developed in partnership with the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) which found a correlation between the number of flu-related searches and the number of people who actually have the flu. These searches form patterns or trends of flu outbreaks in real time so that outbreaks can be identified 1-2 weeks earlier than previously. Although it is not a new concept with the appearance of similar sites like whoissick.org and Health Map; it is the first of its kind to do this on such a mass scale.

We all know this is just the beginning for Google and it will be interesting to see what is the next infectious disease they decide to tackle with the power of collective intelligence behind them.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 at 11:17 am and is filed under Google Flu Trends, Google, Make It Rain. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.