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1.  

   

   BulmaRO, Jun 2nd, 2009 @ 5:32pm

   
   

   what about trying Fired instead of Laid Off?

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2.  

   Another Source

   

   Eric Goldman (profile), Jun 2nd, 2009 @ 5:35pm

   
   

   I believe Google is analyzing a lot of this data using search queries, at least internally. Hal Varian has been repeatedly quoted as discussing how search queries provide valuable macro-economic data. See, e.g., http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~3/M4yZ_3nVw28/nep_googlenomics Eric.

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3.  

   Re:

   

   Anonymous Coward, Jun 2nd, 2009 @ 5:42pm

   
   

   Or got "Obamasized".

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4.  

   Re: Re:

   

   Anonymous Coward, Jun 2nd, 2009 @ 5:55pm

   
   

   >Or got "Obamasized".
   
   More like Bushwacked.

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5.  

   

   Jeffry Houser (profile), Jun 2nd, 2009 @ 6:05pm

   
   

   Lately I've been wondering if this sort of thing could be part of a business model for Twitter. That of course assumes that Twitter is in a better position to mine tweet data than anyone else.
   
   A lot of companies invest quite a bit in market research type activities. Seems that Twitter mining could offer a unique view of.. well, everything.

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6.  

   Re:

   

   Anonymous Coward, Jun 2nd, 2009 @ 6:36pm

   
   

   Misleading data, though. You would have to look at the overall data for twitter users, and then adjust it to match the full norms of society. Even then, if poorer people are less likely to be online (or less likely to use twitter) you end up with a dataset that doesn't represent the full population.
   
   Since the internet tends to skew towards slightly younger and slightly more affluent people, the numbers would tend to be off.

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7.  

   Re: Re:

   

   Jeffry Houser (profile), Jun 2nd, 2009 @ 6:48pm

   
   

   I'm not sure I'd call the data misleading; but you're right it's definitely data coming from a single segment of the population which may not be representative of the whole population.
   
   I can envision situations where you'd want to mine this segment though. Apple might be one example. Any companies targeting programmers might be another (Portions of Adobe or Microsoft for example).

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8.  

   Re: Re:

   

   Joel Coehoorn, Jun 2nd, 2009 @ 6:59pm

   
   

   Not only that, but people use these feeds to disseminate news. So someone reading about more people laid off in the paper may put that in their status, and since that's in the news a lot more right now...

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9.  

   you are missing the point, people

   

   sean garrett, Jun 2nd, 2009 @ 8:22pm

   
   

   to the commenters nitpicking the validity of the data, you are totally missing the point of this chart.
   
   of course, if you are a professional researcher or an economist you are going to weigh for statistical and demographic inconsistencies, etc. you also know that there are a lot of terms possible that will have different impacts.
   
   one of the points of this is that the ability to measure the thoughts and impulses of many millions of people is available to anyone with an Internet connections. You only need about 45 seconds on your hands (that's the time it took me). You won't get perfect results, but what do you expect?
   
   and, if Joe Blow can do this now, what could those mentioned professional researchers, advertisers and economists do once versions 2, 3, 4, etc come out?
   
   and, btw, all this said, try to tell me that this chart doesn't paint an interesting picture.

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10.  

    Re: you are missing the point, people

    

    Anonymous Coward, Jun 2nd, 2009 @ 8:57pm

    
    

    Not really - when we start to get closer to that point, people (like the Adbusters types) will purposely jam the system, signup up thousands of accounts and stuffing in fake data to skew the results as best they can. Everyone will write "I got fired" on their facebook on Monday, and then the next monday write "I got hired" just to screw the system over.
    
    This sort of data is remarkably unreliable, because you are depending on people to tell the truth, the same people who are using screen names, VPNs, and all sorts of other stuff. About as trustworthy as asking inmates about how to be model citizens.

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11.  

    RE:

    

    iyogi (profile), Jun 2nd, 2009 @ 8:58pm

    
    

    A lot of companies invest quite a bit in market research type activities. Seems that Twitter mining could offer a unique view of.. well, everything

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12.  

    Re: you are missing the point, people

    

    lordmorgul, Jun 2nd, 2009 @ 11:07pm

    
    

    You're right it is very interesting that a certain level of 'market research' capability is being made available to the general public through this site. This type of trending is likely to expand to many other sites and blog searches because it has lots of 'wow-factor' and is a very easy online tool to build.
    
    But yeah, the trend lines are not indicative of any specific trend in the economy, even though they are interesting to see. If you through in the S&P short term market rally across this graph you'd see it is actually rising as the hired & fired trends are falling (mid March the rally started and continued strong through May, now is rolling off). This could tell you many companies are getting their resources in line (manpower to needs), but it could also tell you nothing at all.

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13.  

    Re: Re: you are missing the point, people

    

    Anonymous Coward, Jun 2nd, 2009 @ 11:09pm

    
    

    All polling based systems are inherently flawed by requesting data from a (hopefully) statistically significant set of potential liars. This does not make it useless, only inherently flawed.

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14.  

    Re: Re: Re: you are missing the point, people

    

    Anonymous Coward, Jun 3rd, 2009 @ 4:42am

    
    

    Like asking a bomb maker with no fingers how to make a bomb. Not useless, but inherently flawed.

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