I think you are under-representing what HealthMap is[1]. It is more than a Google Alert tied to Google Maps and, while still fairly new, it is an active researc

I think you are under-representing what HealthMap is[1]. It is more than a Google Alert tied to Google Maps and, while still fairly new, it is an active research and development project from Boston Children's Hospital, with a large set of publications around the problem-space of using big data to identify disease outbreaks[2]. So, yes, TFA is sensational, but that doesn't mean the tool it's reporting on is useless. 1. http://healthmap.org/site/about http://healthmap.org/site/about 2. http://healthmap.org/site/about/publications http://healthmap.org/site/about/publications