Comments on: Google Flu Trends Canadian Edition

By: CreativeHerb

CreativeHerb — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 17:26:15 +0000

and there’s a sharp spike in April 2009 too, due to the recent Swine Flu outbreak.

By: James

James — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 17:21:48 +0000

Very interesting, thanks! I’d guess the spike in October is likely due to several province’s annual flu shot drivse.

By: CreativeHerb

CreativeHerb — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 18:02:19 +0000

No problem Kelly. The News Reference Volume is basically just the frequency of the topic found within the Google news network. The more articles on the subject, the higher that stat will be.

Side note:
From analyzing the charts, I have wondered whether the primary index is only partially affected by actual flu symptoms, but mostly affected by mainstream media. Reverse placebo effect.

By: Kelly

Kelly — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 15:19:22 +0000

Thanks for getting back to me.

One more question: What is the difference between the line entitled “Search Volume Index” and the one entitled “News Reference Volume”?

Thanks again!

By: CreativeHerb

CreativeHerb — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 14:39:55 +0000

Hi Kelly, you’re welcome, I’m glad it is of use to you. Actually a bit of both, it is from Google’s Canadian data. =)

By: Kelly

Kelly — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 14:17:30 +0000

Excellent information!

Just wondering the source of the data. Is it from Google, or from a Canadian source?

Thanks!

By: CreativeHerb

CreativeHerb — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 03:55:17 +0000

Thanks Mark! This is actually version 2 of what I originally planned. I spent a few hours trying to do some crazy data mashups in Yahoo Pipes with charts created through Google Chart API. Then got stuck due to a limit of functionality in Yahoo Pipes. Could still do it but would take another few hours at least.

So I went with this version 2 which took me only about 1/3 of the time than I did with version 1. Still turned out pretty informational I think.

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 19:50:08 +0000

Very interesting post. Just wondering, how long did this take to make? And very nice, clean blog you got here Mark´s last blog post: October 2008 NPD Numbers