[Sociam-soton] google flu social machines got it wrong

[electronic Max]

OK - Last article I'm forwarding today.

New Nature article today on how and why Google Flu -- a social media
powered algorithm for estimating Flu trends- vastly overestimated the flu
outbreak this year in the US.

http://www.nature.com/news/when-google-got-flu-wrong-1.12413

Sources external to Google says that it was most likely due to paranoia
concerning the flu  sparked by widespread media coverage including New York
declaring a health emergency early on.  This caused people to search for
the flu at large scale, even when they weren't sick themselves - foiling
Google's algorithm.

The perils of using a secondary indicator to power inference!

Have a good weekend,
Max
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