Online Chatter Predicts Swine Flu

You probably already know a lot about the swine flu pandemic, but what you may not know is that weeks before it was recognised by health officials, a small company called Veratect had a hunch that something was brewing.

Veratect is a small company operating out of Washington that works in a similar way to BrandsEye. They scour the Internet for mentions of a specific topic using computer algorithms before analysing the relevant mentions to monitor disease outbreaks and civil unrest worldwide. The logic behind this is that there is a huge amount of information to be utilised from blogs, online chat rooms, Twitter feeds, news media and government websites. In this case Veratect picked up an unusually large amount of online 'events' regarding respiratory illnesses in the Mexican state of Vericruz, with Mexico considered to be the epicentre of the pandemic.

Sceptics are not convinced of the use of these detection programs as they are based on unofficial and unscientific sources. Despite scepticism more credence is being given to Veratect and their formulas as it seems that they have been able to construct a valuable timeline of the Swine Flu virus from outbreak till now.

Even Google  has recognised the importance behind search terms as an indicator of flu activity. Google Flu Trends uses aggregated search data to predict flu activity across the world. What they have been able to discern is that flu-related queries became more frequent over last month which was inconsistent with standard seasonal flu trends. This alerts them to the fact that something strange was occurring.

We can’t help but notice that trending information available online can offer valuable insights. This example shows the potential of consumer thoughts if they can be mined and organised, something that many businesses are starting to take an interest in. 

In a similar way that Veratect could give early warnings about swine flu outbreaks, ORM tools can detect an early outbreak of dissatisfaction with your brand. If dissatisfaction can be detected early, you can respond early and avoid catastrophe - if officials had recognised the use of Veratect’s predictions and warnings perhaps the pandemic could have been slowed.

While sceptics may say that the source of the information is ‘unofficial’ with the majority coming from consumer generated media, one has to ask, who is more knowledgeable about your brand, the man that drives the Bakkie every day, or the official that reports on sales?