Tweeting the Future

Could you imagine the United States government having the ability to predict the start of an economic downturn well before the economy ever shows signs of peril? What about a company effectively forecasting the quarterly sales of a new product shortly after the launch date?

Social Media may be bringing us eerily close to predicting the future just by monitoring the constant chatter of the public. On Twitter, Facebook and other social mediums, people are engaged in a constant conversation about products, lifestyles, and all things deemed interesting and important to them. Social media provides a platform that people can use to sound their opinions. If it is possible to discern someone’s opinion of Facebook, then it may also be possible to determine how they will act in response to that opinion. For example, if someone is tweeting about how much they enjoyed presidential candidate #1’s speech, the assumption could be made that the tweeting individual will vote for candidate #1. This could mean that somewhere off in the not so distant future, entire election outcomes can be forecasted through social media.

British economist Noreena Hertz believes that analyzing chatter from Twitter and Facebook will become a dominant force in business forecasting. She has even carried out an experiment that proves the astonishing power of social media forecasting. Hertz’s work and research highlights the inadequacy of majority of the data used by governments and corporations to determine what people want. So she and a team of scientists, sociologists, and economists developed a method of research that enabled them to successfully predict the publicly chosen winner of the talent contest and television show “The X Factor”.  A sophisticated algorithm allowed the team to “listen” to hundreds of thousands of tweets at once and “deduced not just the number and subject of messages but also, for the first time, the sentiment.” This high tech social media measuring stick was actually able to determine the way people felt about a contestant!

I believe that this experiment proves that social media is a direct line to thoughts, ideas, and attitudes that can be quantified. And if any company or country, for that matter, takes its value for granted—they will definitely regret it. The heart beat of an economy, customers, and constituents are constantly being broadcasts to anyone willing to listen. And it is only a matter of time before more algorithms, sociologists, and computer scientists come together to create a technology that can predict the impending actions of a population.