Social Media Metrics For Dummies

What’s Coming Next

I say, “What’s next?” but much of this technology is already here; it just hasn’t trickled down into the hands of the average user yet. Here’s what kind of “big data” is being tracked right now:

Lies: That’s right, sites like Match.com and OKCupid can already tell what people are most likely to lie about (like height or income, for example). Not only that, these sites can tell what each person might lie about because each person may fib about something different. Honesty metrics have gotten so good that soon they’ll be able to apply the algorithm to larger text blocks, like a bio or About Me section that isn’t just Q&A formatted. This will exponentially increase the accuracy rate of these sites.

Medical issues: Science can already track your health, but soon it’ll be able to predict health issues for each person based on data sets and input from other online sources about lifestyle. These sources will include nonhealth-related sites like Twitter and Facebook (and whatever site or app comes next where people over share).

Safety issues: The government is already tracking keywords related to terrorism and other national security issues, including weighting them by ...