Googling the future: Internet search data may be useful for forecasters

The Economist released an article following a fascinating question: Can Google searches help us predict the future?

CLAIMS of clairvoyance, particularly when they come from economists, deserve a sceptical reception. Hal Varian, a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley who also happens to be Google’s chief economist, has no such pretensions, but he does believe that data on internet searches can help predict certain kinds of economic statistics before they become available....

Check out the Economist article about Google here. Check out the Google Forecast site here.