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I am in Connecticut and there was an article on gizmodo[1] that said Connecticut was the safest place in the US due to Google's analysis. When everyone then st
by davidjhall 14y ago
I am in Connecticut and there was an article on gizmodo[1] that said Connecticut was the safest place in the US due to Google's analysis. When everyone then started to search for "flu connecticut" on Google, we became the worst! To me, that showed the flaw of using google searches to determine flu outbreaks
[1]http://gizmodo.com/5974671/you-will-not-be-able-to-escape-the-worst-flu-season-in-10-years-unless-you-move-to-connecticut?tag=flu http://gizmodo.com/5974671/you-will-not-be-able-to-escape-th...
- ChuckMcM 14y agoThis is exactly right, it only works when it isn't observed by the people its trying to observe. I had this discussion with one of the project managers when it came out and pointed out the flaw, if you let people know, they could search for it and then that would mess up your graph. They believed they had a good handle on differentiating between people looking for flu information and people looking for Google Trends flu information. Apparently it still needs some work :-)
- 127001brewer 14y agoWhy wouldn't Google use your physical location (determined by your IP Address) to graph trends instead of using, as an example, the "flu connecticut" search term? (Granted, determining your physical location by IP Address is not always accurate.)