Google and Prediction on Search

Google has a site devoted to displaying predicted flue occurrence in the US that outperforms the CDC:

We've found that certain search terms are good indicators of flu activity. Google Flu Trends uses aggregated Google search data to estimate flu activity in your state up to two weeks faster than traditional systems.

This is a great application of prediction and trend analysis that is open to the benevolent(ish) dictators at Google. They have terabyte upon terabyte of our search data that analysts, marketers and many others put to less humane ends, so it nice to see something like this once and a while.