New potential (logical?) use of social media: spotting disease/illness trends ahead of time

From here:

“The big advantage of social media is you can get a lot more data, and you can get it more quickly and more economically,” said Henry Niman, a biomedical researcher and president of Pittsburgh-based Recombinomics Inc., which analyzes viral evolution and the spread of disease. “It is a matter of fine-tuning that data so you come up with results…