A couple of tools with predictive potential, unsurprisingly were developed by Google. The tremendous volume of data representing the moment to moment interests of internet users and the unique software tools available to Google has led to the development of two services which I find useful.
The first is Google Trends. This service gives users the ability to see the keyword search volume for any particular subject, and to make comparisons between the volume of search requests for different search keywords. The idea being that the volume of searches done through the Google search page reflect the potential future interest of individuals doing the search. During the election of 2008, the outcome of the election was reflected in the higher level of interest reflected in searches for information on Obama vs Hillary, then following the primaries, Obama vs McCain. In both cases, the search volume for Obama was higher than the search volume for either Hillary Clinton or John McCain, reflecting the eventual outcome of both electoral contests.
The second interesting tool from Google was just released. It is Google Realtime Search a real time search of social media like facebook and twitter for search terms, giving the user to see a real time scroll of social media commentary on any subject, giving the user the ability to take real time samplings of peoples opinions and commentary, with the potential of using that information to make predictions about actions in the future.
Another idea with predictive potential which has been under development by several universities and institutions are futures markets with futures being sold on the outcome of specific events. There are several different Futures Prediction Markets operating at the moment, and the U.S. intelligence and defense communities have experimented with ways to harness futures markets to predict future terrorist events and likely sources of international conflict.
Intrade Prediction Market is just one of the futures markets operating where individuals can purchase futures contracts on the outcome of specific political races, scientific or technological developments or other specific events like when Google's Lunar X prize will be won or the potential for a recall of Apple's G4 iPhone. The idea here is that the price of a specific futures contract will reflect the probability of the event occuring.
Two new services with future predictive possibilities have just been released. The first is from social-media analytics start-up Viralheat which offers real time access to information it is collecting on attitudes towards specific topics or products. Viralheat uses natural language processing and machine learning to sift through the volume of traffic on social websites to determine the Web's collective attitudes and sentiment on various topics, and then presents that information in easy to use widget graphic.
The second service was launched by Yahoo's Barcelona research lab, a news search service called Time Explorer. Intended to be part of the EU's Living Knowledge project, Time Explorer generates interactive timelines which shows changes in the news volume of specific topics over time. The application, which can spot absolute references to future dates and can work forward from an articles publication date to figure out relative timings, like "next months election, searches for references to future events, plans or predictions in news stories and online web content then tracks them over time.
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