We all know by now that big data has its eye on all our online activity and communication, but the conclusions it can draw from that information are still pretty unnerving.
Google, for example, can predict flu outbreaks across the world by aggregating certain search terms. Google has assessed its findings against more traditional flu surveillance systems and found that “search query trends provide the basis for an accurate, reliable model of real-world phenomena”. Bear that in mind the next time you wind up on WebMD.com. (You can see other (US-specific) “hot searches” here.)
Relatedly, Target can find out if its customers are pregnant before they’ve told friends and family. Here’s how they do it.
Meanwhile, in the wake of Twitter’s IPO, Bloomberg Businessweek ran an article about metadata attached to tweets, declaring it the “hidden technology that makes Twitter huge”. Spoiler: it’s not just the latitude and longtitude:
From a single tweet and with no other information, you can extract a sense of social influence—how big a voice an individual has, the number of people they reach, the number of people who engaged with this particular tweet. ... You might be fooled into thinking there’s hardly anything there. That’s the genius of Twitter.