Prediction Markets = Collective Forecasting = Collective Intelligence That Predicts
He and his co-authors were the first to publish about the fact that flu-related searches on the Web are precise predictors of the upcoming influenza outbreaks.
Congrats.
Best wishes for the rest of their scientific career.
[*] “Make him a Saint, now!”, in Italian. 
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It`s an indicator of what is rather then a prediction, a bit like a thermometer reading the temperature indicates. Using Google could have a big error margin by deliberate searching, what was just on FOX tv or is it friday and people want a day of work etc. It might be an indication that the CDC (which is probably more acurate than a Google/Yahoo trend) has a problem with their data collection.
Barry,
Is the word “collective intelligence” appropriate? I was wondering that, yesterday. I am still asking myself.
Barry is right.
I’d say CI is appropriate, especially since there is no good definition of it.
Collective intelligence = Wisdom of crowds?
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Under what circumstances is the crowd smarter?
There are four key qualities that make a crowd smart. It needs to be diverse, so that people are bringing different pieces of information to the table. It needs to be decentralized, so that no one at the top is dictating the crowd’s answer. It needs a way of summarizing people’s opinions into one collective verdict. And the people in the crowd need to be independent, so that they pay attention mostly to their own information, and not worrying about what everyone around them thinks.
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http://www.randomhouse.com/fea.....amp;A.html
I agree with those four key qualities.
I’m just wondering if it can be applied in policy making as well.
Maybe our polder model comes close to it. (Don’t worry, as long as you guys fuck up in the States we WILL feel the pain…)
The polder model is a term with uncertain origin that was first used to describe the internationally acclaimed Dutch version of consensus policy in economics, specifically in the 1980s and 1990s.[citation needed] However, the term was quickly adopted for a much wider meaning, for similar cases of consensus decision-making, which are supposedly typically Dutch. It is described with phrases like ‘a pragmatic recognition of pluriformity’ and ‘cooperation despite differences’.
A popular explantion of both the term and the reason this decision-making style works so well in the Netherlands is the unique situation created by the fact that a large part of the country consists of polders below sea-level. Ever since the Middle Ages, competing or even warring cities in the same polder were forced to set aside their differences to maintain the polders, lest they both be flooded.
The Dutch polder model is characterised by the tri-partite cooperation between employers’ organizations such as VNO-NCW, labour unions such as the FNV, and the government.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polder_model