The revolt that started a year ago today in Egypt was spread by Twitter and YouTube, or so the popular conception goes. But a group of Navy-backed researchers has a more controversial thesis: Egyptians were infected by the idea of overthrowing their dictator.
And now, these researchers claim, they’re getting close to developing tools that can track the spread of infections like these.
With funding from the Office of Naval Research, a team at Aptima, Inc. is developing software that’d do more than just scan Twitter for trending topics. Instead, it’d mine the web, including news stories, social networks and blogs, to extract topics and phrases that are gaining traction online. Then, the software would keep tabs on how the conversations proliferate, both geographically and over time.
The software would use epidemiological modeling to chart the discussions and their trajectory. It’s a strategy often used in public health initiatives to figure out where an illness started, and how it spread: Epidemiologists use collections of data to make educated guesses about causality; which health and environmental factors, for example, contributed to an outbreak in a given community.
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