Today nearly every data vendor and many government sources, like courts and motor vehicle agencies, offer data that can be sorted automatically, freeing Reed's engineers to focus on grouping by subject relevance according to the company's proprietary taxonomy.

FORBES: Search and Ye Shall Find

The report collated data from across the motor insurance industry over the last year, and also studied police data for road accident injuries.

BBC: Traffic

That marked the first time since 1981, when data were first available, that motor vehicle crashes were not among the nation's top 10 causes of death.

CNN: SHARE THIS

For example, using data on searches for trucks and SUVs to predict the monthly sales of motor vehicles reduces the average error by up to 18% compared with the predictions from a model that did not incorporate the search data.

ECONOMIST: Internet search data may be useful for forecasters

Just take a look at the stock of large US export companies after China released data that showed a slow down in their economies last week: Toyota Motor Company (NYSE:TM) down 1.92%, Honda (NYSE:HMC) down 2.12%, GM (NYSE:GM) down 2.09%, Ford (NYSE:F) down 1.24%, Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT) down 0.52%, Sony Corporation (NYSE:SNE) down 7.30%, Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) down .20%, Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) down 1.37%, Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) down 2.82%, Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO) down 1.21 %, and 3M (NYSE:MMM) down 1.35 percent.

FORBES: Globalization at Risk, What Does it Mean for Investors?