Pulse: the New Science Blogs

Feeling the Beat

“Invisible Hand” Podcast Interview

Chris Gondek’s “Invisible Hand” podcast interview of Douglas Hubbard about his new book Pulse: The New Science of Harnessing Internet Buzz to Track Threats and Opportunities.  Doug describes how Google Searches, Facebook posts, and Tweets are being used to forecast unemployment, disease outbreaks, public opinion and more.

Quote of the Day

Pulse and its various synonyms are “the collective, macroscopic trends which can be scientifically inferred by harnessing publicly accessible data from the Internet.” – Hubbard, Douglas W. (2011). Pulse: The New Science of Harnessing Internet Buzz to Track Threats and Opportunities.

The Impact of “Pulse”

“Information from the Pulse will become part of models that are dynamically simulating and forecasting businesses and the consequences of management decisions … it will have at least the following four types of impact:”

1. “Decisions based on responses to macro-trends will be faster. We won’t have to wait weeks—and certainly not 15 months as in the NBER report on the end of the recession—for indications of changes in fundamental economic factors, health conditions, and public opinions.”
2. “In some cases, the Pulse will be more accurate than traditional methods of collecting data about major trends. While the traditional methods like polls will continue to be used to calibrate and validate the Pulse, the Pulse will avoid some problems that plague traditional surveys.”
3. “Trends that otherwise would not have been seen at all will be visible. Traditional surveys have to be purpose-built. In other words, we have to have an idea of what we are looking for in advance, and then we have to collect that specific data. The Pulse offers a way to see trends that no one even knew to look for when the data was generated.”
4. “Basic models of society will change. Our ability to investigate and respond to the environment more quickly and accurately has implications for organizational structure, logistics, finance, and virtually every other part of business, government, and the study of humanity. This may be the greatest impact of the Pulse.”

- Hubbard, Douglas W. (2011). Pulse: The New Science of Harnessing Internet Buzz to Track Threats and Opportunities (Kindle Locations 439-453). Wiley. Kindle Edition.

Amazon’s email blast for Pulse

Amazon just sent out its email blast for my next book Pulse: The New Science of Harnessing Internet Buzz to Track Threats and Opportunities. If you get those, you know what I mean (e.g., “If you like book X you will like this new book” etc.). With my previous books, this is usually the beginning of when sales really start to pick up for a new book release.  We’ll see.