Google: a new tool for U.S. Intelligence
NPR reports that wiretaps and other stealth intercept methods are proving to be inadequate when it comes to helping U.S. Intelligence agents clue into social unrest and uprisings. However, social media such as Facebook and Twitter are proving to be very usefull indicators for checking the pulse of the populace.
The key to using this info is in developing ways to assess the data rapidly on a large scale. That’s where Google Trends comes in.
Army Intel officers are looking at past data from Google Trends during the recent uprisings in foreign countries to see what patterns can be found for use in predicting such future events.
This isn’t the first time “Big Brother” has turned to the power of Google. The National Institures of Health took notice back in 2009 when Google Flu became a better predicter of flu outbreaks than their own data.
If you aren’t using Google key words and analytics to check business trends, you may be missing out on some great opportunities. If it’s good enough for U.S. Intelleigence, maybe you should be taking some time to learn about it.
You can read the full NPR storey here:
Google: a new tool for U.S.intelligence
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