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Personally I think that this is a absolute genius idea by Google. The fact that they are helping improve the health of our counties by taking the initiative to do their own research for us, that is admirable. Although i believe that they should stick to statistical trends because they could potential fallacies if they tried to predict chronic conditions. Health officials and the public should use this data to their advantage but I think it is so common for doctors that they wouldnt need it.

Now that Google knows where your house is and what you’re doing in front of it, they now know when you’re going to get the flu. Google could be used to predict any conditions that could be specific to a certain area with the help of your IP address. This seems to be relatively simple because all Google does is compile the data and they can tell which areas are at the most risk. One shortfall could be that eventually many spots in the US could use this same approach and type in key terms and soon data from various places could be indecipherable and jumbled. There is also no accurate way of predicting when the stages of flu will come to an end. What Google can help in providing is appropriate times for vaccination.

I don’t believe that this will work for rare diseases. What if someone is studying said rare diseases… or all of one teacher’s biology classes. In a school like ours, if all of the ninth grade biology students were studying one disease, and they all looked it up on two separate computers, this application would proabably think there was a breakout of the disease in the area? I think this is a great idea but needs a little refining.

When Google Chrome came out, my friend said that it was Google’s way of taking over the world. What will Google do next?

What Google is doing is amazing. They are capable of predicting trends with data compiled through searches. However, not everyone uses google and not everyone uses the internet to look up what is wrong with them. Google’s predictions of trends are useful however, they can not be relied on for accurate and absolute data. Google can be used to help doctors find trends in rare conditions though. If multiple searches for a rare condition occur then doctors and other proffesionals can see if there is a problem in the area leading to the rare condition. Chronic conditions are too numerous and occur almost everywhere without much dependence on their environment and therefore Google wouldn’t be much help.

This is definately a smart idea from Google. And, although, not everyone uses Google and some people may look up the symptoms just to find more information without actually being sick, I believe that Google’s numbers should be fairlyy accurate, even if they’re a little over (hey, it’s just more vaccines they can send off to other places) or a little under the actual statistics collected (which is probably still more than the CDC, two weeks behind, collects).

I think that what Google is doing is great and on the right track. However, I don’t believe it could accurately predict diseases or conditions either rare or chronic. With a lot of fine tuning though, it could definitely be the start of an extremely useful tool.

I think this is really cool. Its exciting that with technology we have the ability to do polls like this without having to ask mass amounts of people a list of questions. This way people are coming with the information without even knowing it. This could be a very useful idea for many other types of surveys like this, not only in medical business, but other things as well. Its a quick and easy way to evaluate the people of a certain area.

While this is really cool and all, it does have a few drawbacks. For instance, the whole population is not being recognized. Only people with internet access can be apart of Google’s flu number. There are also a majority of people who have the internet but either don’t know how to use it, or didn’t take the time to look their symptomes up on it. For example, I have the flu right now, but I didn’t look on Google to see if my symptomes matched flu symptomes. And what about the people who don’t end up with the flu, but who have flu like symptomes? If they type in Google’s key words, they are being counted as flu victims. I think for this system to work perfectly, Google needs to take these types of things into account.

Even though this is an amazing idea I see this prediction system kind of like the weather chanel. Everyone will pay attention to it and trust what it says, even though it isn’t always right. But it is very helpful, and a lot of times it is right. So this Google thing could be like that where the probability of its predictions being a 100% is not even close, but it is good data to trust in and count on.

I don’t think tracking chronic conditions would be of much use. They do not require the same sense of urgency as the flu. The Centers for Disease Control should be able to handle the trends for chronic diseases because they are not likely to change drastically on a weekly basis.

Google…um…why?

I know you have the capablility of tracking me though my IP, and that is pretty cool, but…shouldn’t things like this be left to bigger and more like…medical people?

Why isn’t something like WebMD doing this? What is Google going to do with this infomation? Are they going to give it to the Center for Disease Control? Are they going to give it to doctors? Well it is pretty cool of Google if they are doing it…but eh…

Yeah, you could use it to determine high risk areas for weight realted things. Then officvials could increase like obisities education in young children and teenagers to help neweer gnerations know how they should take care of their bodies. Then you won’t have to use as much time or money on areas that aren’t at a high risk.

All I can say is wow. I knew google was one of the top search engines, but this is just incredible. I hope this can revolutionize the way people can perpare for the flu outbreak. I hope this web nugget works because it can save people a couple trips to the doctors office.

Google knows everything! Even though google might not be completely accurate it definately has a foot in the door on every other source even the Centers for Disease Control. It impresses me that someone could come up with that kind of way to collect data and draw conclusions. This just shows the creative problem solving team that Google has. Google Earth, Google Map quest, Google Weather, Google Measurment Coversions, Stock Quotes, Sports Scores, you name it Google does it. This is amazing to me that Google can do so much good. It should be called Goodle!

Wow, the cortex is real important. Did it just stop all of the sudden? Maybe it was something in the water or the air or something like that.

This is a very smart idea from Google. I understand that not everyone uses Google or not everyone that searches the symptoms is sick themselves. But for the most part the data they will have collected will be accurate enough to make estimates of how many vaccines should be distributed, and where. And if their estimates are a little over, who cares, the extra vaccines can be used elsewhere and if they’re a little under, it probably would have still been more than what the CDC, two weeks behind, would have estimated.

I think that this is definitely a very creative idea. It seems as though it would be a relatively accurate predictor of widespread outbreaks. Assuming that the number of false positive searches would be on the low side and knowing that millions of people visit google on a daily basis, the random false positive searches that do occur would therefore be insignificant in the large pool of data.

However, what if Google were to broadcast their predictions and if people were to start relying on the warnings? Wouldn’t there be an increase in searches related to flu symptoms and such following a flu outbreak warning, consequently skewing the data?

This is an excellent use of technology, a very brilliant idea from a brilliant company. If research on the technology-health field increases, then society can be much more informed about diseases and prevention from these common disease. What a great idea to use the internet and computer to compile data and making a trend of disease breakouts, this is simpler and faster than manually recording flu incidents.

This technology could definitely be applied to other diseases like diabetes or high blood pressure. Doctors could examine a disease from a totally different vantage point and research new and novel ideas of preventing or perhaps even finding the cure for that disease through google’s information.

Google has so many uses to so many different people, that I cannot imagine surfing the internet without it. Look at it this way, google is like WalMart, it has every necessity we need at a convenient location, and continues to grow at an exponential rate in every direction.

Although I admire Google’s thoughtfulness, I serisouly doubt this will prove an effective method of predicting locations for flu outbreaks. Google should take into account other factors- like sometimes people just get really insanely bored and Google random things. I have lost count of how many times I will end up on Google looking up the most random facts- like info. about the platypus!

Those poor babies…oh, well. You have to wonder, though, just what could have caused their anencephaly; it seems rather odd, as one can safely assume that, even if a few babies had mutated genes, that they didn’t live long enough to reproduce, and therefore it couldn’t be inherited or become a recessive trait, so how come there are 1000-2000 of these cases yearly? How is that actually possible?

Well, Google is starting its global conquest. We already rely on it for all of our searches, maps, etc., and now we can find out if we are sick!? Its as if they want us to become totally dependent on Google for everything in our lives…

I don’t think that this would work for rare cases, because the premise for this program is that the trends are determined by the amount of people doing google searches, and if there aren’t many cases of something, it wouldn’t be notable on the program itself, and therefore would be left out. For common diseases, however, I think that the program would work pretty well.

This makes me wonder about what else could be analyzed based on people’s location. For example, in the recent election, could Google have predicited the popular vote between Barack Obama and John McCain based on which candidate people Googled more? It would be difficult to perfect a method for accurate analysis.

I heard this on the radio today and thought it was pretty amazing. The fact that the google techies could compile information so quickly and know the general access site of each look up is kind of oogy, though. I think that this is a great indicator of when a person should go to their flu shot. Maybe people will actually feel compelled if they see an outstanding breakout in their general area of residency.

I agree with Ellie on this point. Google’s idea with the keywords is genius, but what if an entire school was given some terms to look up? What would happent then? The data taken by Google would be skewed. It would record the number of times IP addresses in Allen would search for “influenza” or “symptoms of the flu” or something similar, and those researchers might assume (we hope not) that the flu is starting in Allen, TX. Yes, this is a great idea and an excellent innovation on Google use, but it does need some refining.

I think that’s pretty sad that it takes that long for the Center for Disease Control to figure out when we’re having a flu epidemic and that Google has to come to the rescue. It sounds like by the time the the CDC figures out there’s an epidemic going on, it’s too late if not already over. And couldn’t the government approximately judge when or how bad the flu epidemic will be based on previous years? Or couldn’t they at least tell by taking a walk around the city instead of waiting for someone to tell them, “hey people in your town are sick, you should probably do something”

This is a little creepy. If they can trace your IP address, than with the right equipment/hackers, they could hack your hard drive or something…although it would serve their world conquering agenda… In all seriousness, however, this is kind of cool, I mean using the IP addresses to localize where there is a trend of infections, or whatever: cool.

I see the potential for this idea being applied to other scenarios, but as Ellie stated earlier chronic diseases are researched by students and even other individuals as well, just out of curiosity.

i think that this tool would be very useful in predicting smaller conditions like the flu or some common virus. the bigger conditions may be harder to track, but it would be very helpful if it could predict when such rare diseases are in the area, Google and the internet are used by most everyone so if indeed they are able to predict the bigger diseases, they can better protect the people.

The doctors can use this tool to get ready for the flu influx that is about to come. Scientists may even be able to decipher something interesting through this flu tracking device. The public will also be helped by being aware that the flu virus is near by and they can protect themselves by getting vaccinations.

I’m not completely sold on the fact that searching for the flu symptoms is a good indicator of an epidemic going on in a particular area. There’s plenty of people who know that a runny nose, cough, sore throat, etc. mean you probably have the flu, or you have a cold. Those people probably aren’t goint to be on google trying to figure out what illness they have. To add to that, there’s other illnesses that share some of the same symptoms with the flu. If you have a runny nose and a cough, you easily could have allergies, a cold, or even strep sometimes. I think that Google is eventually going to give us all a good scare.

I think that this was a great idea. It’s amazing the extent of benefits we can gain from today’s technology. However, I think that the overall concept is liable to error. Just because someone has the flu does not mean that they will search for online health information and contrarily, someone that searches for online health information may not have the flu.

It is remarkable that Google is taking advantage of people’s obsession to look up every morsel of detail on the web by breaking out of their search engine box and stepping into a myriad of new ideas to benefit society. On one hand, I assume it is somewhat of a good idea because the researchers simply play a game of bingo by seeing if certain searches have gone up and if majority of people are looking this specific term up, then they hit the jackpot and can notify the county health officers that flu epidemic is on its way. On the other side, it is to some extent eerie because there are people who know exactly what one is doing thousands of miles away, just by looking at the IP address.

Although Google is trying to lend a hand, it cannot be completely precise because it could be mere coincidences that people are looking up “symptoms of a cold” which could just be for the sake of curiosity.

Im guessing that this means that google will be able to figure out where certain places contain a high amount of flu activity. What could be some of that factors that might cause the flu activity to be high?

I agree with Ellie and i am amazed on how technology continues to revolutionize this world. I think Google stands like a role model and that other companies might use what Google to build on their own projects.

Because Google has created projects like Google Flu Trends I believe that we have the capabilities to predict how some diseases that we havent had a cure for can be eliminated. Also this will probably help health officials gather a broader range of data.

Well they do have all day everyday sitting in awesome offices so I guess it’s about time someone stumbled upon the correlation. It’s a pretty cool concept and could be used to predict common, general trends like the flu or diabetes, allowing for local clinics to put in reasonable orders of vaccines, but probably shouldn’t be relied on for rarer cases as it may just be a coincidence like Ellie said.

I agree with Glenn in that i believe Google is only one tool out of many new projects that can enhance the possibility of certain diseases. However I believe that a top company like Google has the capabilities of getting top of the line information in knowing about rare diseases.

Although Google is doing some amazing things they’re about a google years away from being able to predict genetic trends. I mean, like Glenn-Eric said, not everyone uses google to find out information about whats wrong with them. Plus, if they know what’s wrong with them wouldn’t that usually mean they have been diagnosed already?

I agree with Ellie that there are some limitations to this method of compiling statistics. Just because someone is researching the flu or another disease on Google does not necessarily mean that the person has that disease. Like Ellie said someone could be working on a project or researching the topic out of curiosity. Also maybe a relative in a different area of the country is suffering from this disease. Therefore the results aren’t always reliable.

Wow! Google is amazing! I never would have thought that this was possible. I am shocked that someone came up with this idea. I think this could be very beneficial in looking at all diseases but mainly rare ones. It would also be interesting to see what certain search terms are used frequently in different parts of the country.

After this topic aired on the news, I actually searched it. I found out that there is a whole website dedicated to Googles “flu trends”. On the main page, there is a graph of the average flu activity in the United States.
At first I was really amazed, but after observing the graph in detail, it was evident that the data was just a representative of the present flu searches compared to past correlation lines. The graph did not determine a predictive value. Because of this, I don’t think that Google can “predict” flu epidemics, but can give an average of flu related searches. Although the idea is potentially beneficial, it’s process is liable to major errors.

I have to agree that this is really amazing. It is too early for me to tell if I would rely on the Google data. I would like to see a comparison of this data to the data compiled by the CDC and see how close the two sets of data turn out.

I think it’s great that Google thought of this to help track the flu and help county health officers insure they have adequate supply of flu vaccination. Although it has good intentions, it’s not very well thought out. There are many ways in which the results could become skewed. One way is that some people might just abuse this facility. But, the plus side is that it’s still going to help the officers get up-to-date information about the need for flu vaccination. It would just be advisable to have it just as a resource instead of completely relying on it.

Yes, I do think that the Google Flu Trends could be used to predict the Flu because the flu is usually an annual recurrence among the population, thus searches will occur more often in a certain time of the year in a certain area. But diabetes and heart disease are continual and take years to develop, thus one cannot predict chronic illnesses/diseases.

Did you know that the flu vaccine comes in a nasal spray form now?
Its really cool, I had it last Thursday. Its a bad tasting in the throat, but I can tell its much more popular with the moms and their squeamish children. I wonder why they haven’t thought of this before, or maybe they have, Has anyone else had the nasal spray before?

What Google is doing is inspiring as they go out of their way grant us an easier way to maintain our health as not everyone has access to a Center for Disease control. If there is anything threatening our immune system, whether it be something as little as a cold or something as massive as heart disease, then a tool such as this should definitely be used to better our health. However, people should definitely be cautious when using the tool as the data could be easily manipulated.

Well, I’m sure Google has more ways to organize what, when, where the search terms popped up that implied a certain flu, so I think they won’t really be jumbled and mixed up and trends can certain “hotspots” of the flu can be found using the new application Google has brought forth. Wow, from a search engine… to email, to maps… Google’s been branching out big time. Yeah, this is real helpful because its more updated, updated by real people. They dont have to wait until they are at the hospital to be recorded.

I think it would be a good idea for google to be able to predict flu trends. However, like other people have already said, some people research diseases or symptoms on google for other reasons. They might look it up for a research paper or for interest, not simply because they are suffering from that disease. In this case predicting where a flu outbreak would occur wouldn’t be accurate. It is a good idea though, and I guess we’ll just have to wait and see whether google can actually pull it off.

T Mobile and the Android, owned by Google, looks like a major competitor against the iPhone. Looks like they’re trying to tackle the phone industry too.

Ellie totally brought up something that i had not even thought about, the data could become skewed very easily by the research example she provided. However i still believe what Google is doing has more pros than cons because if they are successful just once then wouldnt it be worth it? Well Google has come through once again, they help with homework and projects, now they can help our health…who would have guessed it?

I just wonder how many people will go to google for their flu symptoms or flu related questions instead of calling their doctor or nurse? I guess this is just a small scale way to ‘predict’ the trends of the future.

However useful this tool might be, it is most ideal to track the more chronic (and increasingly more common) conditions. It might be useful if the rare conditions were more lasting and in higher abundance- but then they wouldn’t be so rare. But if we track the chronic conditions that are more common, we could predict growing trends in the population and pinpoint triggers initiating these trends by studying the demographics. In theory, yeah it would be nice to track the rare symptoms, but they don’t last long engough and arent’ widespread enough to concern the overall population. Rareties are the reason we have specialists. But this tool, presuming good accuracy, could be very useful in preventing disease/viral outbreaks widespread.

Well, yeah it is partially true that technology is somewhat inadvertantly controlling our lives. Fifteen years ago, people got along without cell phones just fine. Before even the telephone came, people were fine. But now it’s all “OMG- my blackberry died! The Apocalypse is coming!” To be quite frank, some people rely too much on technology. But this is a good example of putting technology to good use- it’s actually helpful. It may be inaccurate and the data may be jumbled around at first, but that can be perfected later if specific filters are applied to exclude anomalies unrelated to flu outbreaks. If we can learn to filter and process a large amount of data efficiently enough, the medical branch of technology will get a heads up on tracking the anomalies that interfere with, for lack of a better description, normal lifestyle of the average American, we can track the rare illnesses and diseases that aren’t supposed to be just popping up in the middle of an otherwise ‘healthy’ population. I am referring to biological warfare- if there was an outbreak in anthorax, could someone have Googled the symptoms of their neighbor who had just died with all the signs that pointed to the powdery film covering yesterday’s mail? And could that neighbor in New York have a connection with the neighbor in California?

Did you know I came up with this whole Google thing?

Yea, I think it could be used, but I wouldn’t depend on it to much. I would only use it to give me ideas. As it was mentioned, sometimes the weather predictions are way off.

Google is truly amazing! i had no idea that a website was capable of recording flu trends. While this is a really good idea this idea still needs to be perfected. First of all it’s not good that the count is only limited to people with access to the internet. And if you think about it many people that live in poor living conditions that would be more susceptible to the flu virus would not necessarily have the internet available to them. and what if you dont use google? what if your more of an ask or yahoo kind of person?

Also most people can automatically recognize if they have flu symptoms or just get a shot yearly like i do. If i have the flu i usually know and wouldnt even bother looking up my symptoms on the internet to prove it. it could be useful to predict rare conditions but many people that have no relation to this condition may look it up for the pure interest of it to learn about it when they have not personally had any experience with it. It would be more useful in predicting chronic conditions but there would be not particular trend such many people around the world have these conditions so there wouldnt be a purpose for it. I think that google would be useful only for predicting sporadic viruses rather than lifelong conditions.

As great as Google is, I think this rides the line of going to far and possibly doing good. Well it is the first step in trying to combat this virus, but does this mean that Google is tracking other diseases and infections? Could this possibly be a breech in our personal security?

This type of data collecting, as long as it done properly, can prove to be a useful tool for epidemiologists, and far doctors as well. If they can see where a certain ailment is concentrated then it would be possible to focus more efforts on combating that disease or virus.

I think that this is a great idea; whoever thought of it deserves a cookie. Most people now-a-days do use search engines to find information about their smaller sicknesses; I’ve done it before myself. But I don’t think it could be used to predict everything; for example, a woman who had anencephalic baby would just ask her doctor to explain the condition, instead of googling it.

This information would definitly be most useful to health officials, who order flu shots; they could predict just how big the flu is in there state at that time.

I think this a pretty brilliant solution, however the data is not going to be accurate for an important demographic: those living in poverty. This method assumes that all people have a personal computer and are paying for internet access.

I think that this type of data collection has the potential to be great research for psychologists and sociologist. It could be used with the data from the Centers for Disease Control to track how people react to flu epidemics.

This is just amazing, if this was used to the nation’s advantage then diseases could be stopped before an outbreak occurs. Doctors and health offficials could be tremendously be helped by this information, even more than the CDC coudl considering their predictions are two weeks off in most cases.

Google has advanced research abilities so drasitically over the last few years. It is now so easy to answer almost any question in the word with a click of a button. But, like it’s been said, Google needs to be careful about the reliability of their data when it comes to things like illnesses and diseases.

This type of tool could possibly be helpful if used the right way, and used in the right sense. The key words would have to be strictly defined so that accurate results would come through, or else a fake hot spot could occur and a diversion of resources could be disastrous. this idea is best used for what they’ve already used it for, using it for diabetes and other chronic conditions would not be as affective as it would with more basic, harder to track viruses. The public can benefit from this by being alerted if they’re at a higher risk for catching the virus allowing them to take proper action to prevent getting too sick.

That makes me laugh. I will have to say “lol.” I can’t believe Google can do this, and I believe that it would be beneficial to some, but I am not a 100% if I could trust it all the way without more proof somewhere. I agree with Anu. I think it is creepy how they can be tracking other dieseases and how this could affect our privacy. It doesn’t make me like google very much anymore.

this is really cool. I always get the flu and this is such a convenient idea. Most people have google and most people have a computer, I think that this was very clever, and that would really help sick people…..like me. Kudos google!

I believe that these Google Trends could only predict, as Christiana said, annual recurrence. Some people said that there is a possibility that Google could predict all diseases and prevent them before it becomes an epidemic, but I don’t think that Google would be able to do that with the current procedure they are using to predict the flu. There is a season for flu and that is why it’s much easier and more precise than predicting other diseases.

That’s crazy how advanced google is that it is produce results faster than the CDC. This tool could be used for both aspects. Why limit to just one? Doctors can use this information to help those in need and focus their direction of medication in those areas.

Wow, well this is honestly a first. I have never heard that Google could detect diseases. If Google can detect the flu, what about other disease, such as the spread of cancer and AIDS? I’m glad that Google can detect this, but just like you mentioned, there data seems to be unhelpful since it is two weeks behind, and I’m not sure if there data could be reliable.

i agree with angeleen in the fact that the flu may not be the best for this feature but it would be extremly helpful for diseases that arn’t as common and that have puzzled doctors and specialists

This is kind of freaky, but cool. Wow, so this is how Google figures it out. By just looking up for many times people look up terms like “flu” on Google, then they could figure out when a flu epidemic is going to occur. I’m not sure if this is going to work exactly or accurately, but at least google is broadening its horizons!

I am still not entirely convinced that Google can entirely predict the flu. Yes a greater input of search term generally means that the flu might be present, but then, if when flu season has not started yet, and the paranoid people keep searching the terms, then the Flu Trends might be distorted to show the flu spreading through the area. Google Flu Trends seems to be generally accurate, but not precise.