Like it or not, sickness often infects you and your friends. If
a handful of people you know have the flu, chances are pretty
high that you'll come down with it too. It was inevitable, then,
for the social side of illness tracking to make its way onto the
Internet. The most obvious manifestation of social sickness
tracking can be seen with Sickweather, a new startup that mines
data from Twitter, Facebook, and user input to show which
illnesses are going around in your local area--and in your
friend group. The service explains, "just as Doppler radar scans
the skies for indicators of bad weather, Sickweather scans
social networks for indicators of illness." Eventually,
Sickweather hopes to track symptom keywords (i.e. "runny nose,"
and "cough"), but for now it's focusing on simpler terms like
"pneumonia" and bronchitis." Illnesses are shown on a map, and
in future versions, users will be able to track sicknesses via
cell phone (new alert: stay away from Sarah, she's super
germy!). Social sickness tracking can