Pulse : the new science of harnessing Internet buzz to track threats and opportunities / Douglas W. Hubbard.

Includes index.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Preface. -- Acknowledgments. -- Section I: Introduction to the pulse: a new kind of instrument. -- A New Era for Measuring and Predicting Society. -- An Emerging Science: What is This New Thing? -- What Applied Cybersociology Isn't. -- The Major Areas of the Macro-Pulse -- But What Does All of This Mean for Us? -- Note. -- The History of Seeing the Forest through the Trees. -- The King's Surveys. -- The Dawn of Stats, Maps, and Telegraphs. -- The Rise of the Machines. -- The Struggle to Become a Science. -- Notes. -- Emergence of the Pulse and the New Research Discipline. -- The New Data Source. -- Digital Lives: Increasing Time and Activities per Person. -- Open Pastures: A New Field of Research. -- Proving the Pulse: Addressing Misconceptions about the Data. -- Notes. -- The Dynamics of The Pulse. -- Incentives: Why The Pulse Exists. -- The Systems behind Getting and Sharing Data. -- Collaboration and Competition. -- Power Law: Why a Few Sources Tell Us a Lot on the Internet. -- Note.

Section II: The sources of the pulse.-- What Our Surfing Says. -- Tracking Flu Outbreaks: A Faster, Better, and Cheaper Method. -- A Do-It-Yourself Pulse Tracking Example: Using Google Trends for Economic Predictions. -- More Searchology: The Body of Research Grows. -- Caveats and Miscellaneous Considerations for Searchologists. -- Notes. -- Friend as a Verb. -- How Do Social Networks Matter? -- The Dynamic Duo of Social Connections: Two Leaders in Practical Network Research. -- Forecasting the Crowd. -- Social Networks in the Pulse. -- Notes. -- What We Say Online Matters. -- An Introduction to Analyzing Buzz: Counting Tweets Predicts Movie Box Office Receipts. -- Predicting the Broader Economy with Tweets. -- Predicting Markets with Anxiety. -- Tools and Miscellanea for Tapping into the Global Mood. -- Notes. -- Three Potential Pulses: Travelling, Shopping, and Playing. -- Our Flow and the Pulse: What the Movements of Millions of People Tell Us. -- The Shopping Pulse. -- Playtime and the Pulse. -- Notes.

Section III: Effects of the pulse. -- Making the Pulse Practical. -- Re-Thinking Real-Time Decisions in the Pulse. -- A Brief Overview of the Economics of Timely Information. -- Overcoming Cultural and Conceptual Obstacle: Maximizing the Value of the Pulse. -- Implementing the Pulse. -- Notes. -- The Future of the Pulse and its New Challenges. -- Users and the Data They Share Will Increase. -- Services Will Be Better and Make More Data Public. -- Research and Models. -- From Communicators to Tricorders: for Everyone. -- Evolving Challenges and Opportunities for Users of the Pulse. -- Notes. -- About the Author. -- Index.

Shows how the Internet can be used to assess market trends and public opinion and how to take raw data and validate it using some traditional methods.