Predict the future with Twitter

Predict the future with Twitter. Is this really possible? According to computer scientists it is!

For example, Twitter appears to be very suitable to predict the successfulness of new movies. Scientists developed a computer system that analyses the appearance pace of movie tweets, in order to map out the ticket sales. It turned out that looking at tweets on Twitter appears to be even more effective than using prediction sites like the Hollywood Stock Exchange. Lately, the system predicted that the movie 'The Crazies' in America would provide 16.8 million U.S. dollars in the first weekend. It turned out to be 16.1 U.S. dollars...

According to the computer scientists, this technique could also apply for any other commercial product. As a result, this might be especially interesting for businesses that doesn't make use of prediction markets yet. Moreover, it is possible to analyze trends, which can be extremely useful for marketing purposes or even to predict the results of the Dutch elections.

Twitter itself could also contribute to the commercial success of companies. Keeping the opportunities of the prediction service in mind, companies could influence the prediction results by tweeting about their own products. Fortunately, this is not so easy, because they have to maintain the balance between tweeting and spamming. However, this kind of manipulation of prediction results should not be underestimated. But for the time being, could anyone suggest who is going to be the new Dutch Prime Minister?