It seems like Google's getting into practically EVERYTHING, doesn't it? Phones, Web search... Google's even applied to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to buy and sell power on the wholesale market. So it shouldn't be too surprising to learn that Google's also getting into tracking the flu on a much closer basis than before, zooming its Flu Trends page down to look at data in 121 cities.

Google's original Flu Trends page is at http://www.google.org/flutrends/us/#cities . You'll see a graph of flu activity trends for the United States -- Google gauges flu activity based on the appearance of certain search terms -- but underneath that you'll see a map of the United States. Cities where Google is tracking activity more closely are dotted. Raleigh's there, as are Durham, Greensboro, and Charlotte.

If you click on one of the dots, you'll get another graph, this time just for activity in the area you chose, as you can see in the screenshot in this blog entry.

The dark blue line in the screenshot is activity for the 2009-2010 season, which as you can see is light compared to other years. (Looks like handwashing, flu shots, and so forth are paying off!) The neat thing is that Google has tracking data back to the 2003-2004 season; choose another year and you'll get a chart comparing the current season with the season then. (Looking at this chart partially explains the creeping crud attack I had in 2008 -- I was just fitting in!)

Google has good reason to think that use of search terms can parallel sickness outbreaks; take a look at the chart for how Google's search activity parallels published flu data from the CDC at http://www.google.org/flutrends/about/how.html . Hmm... I wonder if we're going to see a "Sunburn Index" published by Google this summer?