Comments on: Google’s flu snafu and the reliability of web data http://gigaom.com/2013/02/14/googles-flu-snafu-and-the-reliability-of-web-data/ Fri, 24 May 2013 03:13:59 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: jdrch http://gigaom.com/2013/02/14/googles-flu-snafu-and-the-reliability-of-web-data/#comment-1313247 Mon, 18 Feb 2013 23:54:58 +0000 http://gigaom.com/?p=610607#comment-1313247 It’s fixed now, thanks :)

]]> By: Derrick Harris http://gigaom.com/2013/02/14/googles-flu-snafu-and-the-reliability-of-web-data/#comment-1312044 Fri, 15 Feb 2013 16:40:46 +0000 http://gigaom.com/?p=610607#comment-1312044 I’ll look into it. That appears to be the case for the Businessweek version, but not for the one on GigaOM.

]]> By: jdrch http://gigaom.com/2013/02/14/googles-flu-snafu-and-the-reliability-of-web-data/#comment-1312009 Fri, 15 Feb 2013 15:54:56 +0000 http://gigaom.com/?p=610607#comment-1312009 The Nature article link goes right back to this article. Can someone fix that?

]]> By: ronald http://gigaom.com/2013/02/14/googles-flu-snafu-and-the-reliability-of-web-data/#comment-1311761 Fri, 15 Feb 2013 00:32:45 +0000 http://gigaom.com/?p=610607#comment-1311761 The illusion people have is that you got an algorithm and you feed it data it will always be right. But it’s only right if the assumptions which go into the algorithm are still valid, or you need a self organizing system which knows about the assumptions. Something that companies blindly using “big data” will have to learn the hard way. People who trust the the “data” without knowing about the assumptions will be in for a surprise.

Also it’s not Google’s first time:
It is not the first time that a flu season has tripped Google up. In 2009, Flu Trends had to tweak its algorithms after its models badly underestimated ILI in the United States at the start of the H1N1 (swine flu) pandemic — a glitch attributed to changes in people’s search behaviour as a result of the exceptional nature of the pandemic (S. Cook et al. PLoS ONE 6, e23610; 2011).

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