Close panel

Close panel

Close panel

Close panel

Innovation

Innovation

Many companies would pay through the nose for a social network fortune teller who could spot trends in social media before anyone else and develop effective strategies to solve potential problems or ensure that they could get the most out of a particular trend whilst it is booming. A fortune teller might be the most exotic approach, but an algorithm is more effective, and an MIT professor has developed just such a tool that can spot the next trending topic.

In this video we can see a minute by minute account of spending patterns in Spain during Easter 2011. The BBVA data is from card transactions categorized into four types of sale: food, fashion, service stations and bars / restaurants.