Website predicts future by tracking Top Tweets, Blogs, Facebook posts, books, searches, videos

The Internet has given Mankind a lot of benefits, but one that may go somewhat unrecognized is its ability to predict where Society is headed, based on monitoring every day’s top news stories, Twitter feeds, blog posts, music downloads, videos, books, Web searches, social network posts, and websites. This may not only answer specific questions about the future, but might identify the particular ’Zeitgeist’, or spirit of the times, that a certain era evokes.

This monumental project has been undertaken by Osaka University researcher Kenji Ikeda and his students, in collaboration with the World Mind Network and teachers and students from Poland and the U.S. The sites they use to track the various topics can be found at thetopeverything.net.

Individual classrooms attempt to answer specific questions about Pop culture, sustainability, politics, science, education, social life, and other subjects based on a daily monitoring of the various trends.

Others are welcome to join the project. It takes about 10 minutes a day to track all the sites, though the time it takes an individual to arrive at a reasonable prediction based on the information is probably longer. The conclusions gathered will be presented in a monograph and website appearing in June, and a decision will be made then about continuing the project.

Contact Information

John Toomey

Co-Director

World Mind Network

Contact via E-mail