La idea es sugerente: utilizar al buscador como barometro de los tiempos económicos. Al menos eso pretende Hal Varian, chief economist de Google. Mediante un sofisticado análisis de las búsquedas relacionadas a seguros de desempleo, centros de reclutamiento e interés por el sector inmobiliario, la compañía pretende anticipar tendencias y pronosticar el sentir ciudadano. Una idea novedosa, que aunque lejos de tener precisión científica, podría convertirse en una nueva manera de tomar el pulso social. El Washington Post lo explica con más detalle:
In March, the number of Google users searching for information about unemployment benefits or employment centers began to drop, Varian said. Overall unemployment has continued to climb, of course, but new jobless claims have declined since peaking earlier this year.
“As a contemporaneous predictor, predicting the present through search queries has been a pretty good predictor of initial (jobless) claims,” said Varian, who was visiting Washington this week to make the case that government agencies should use Google tools to better draw current snapshots of consumer sentiment, corporate health and social interests.
