Noreen Hertz a British economist and author used social media conversations to predict who the winner of X-Factor would be.  Hertz believes you can predict real-world outcomes using social media sites.  She believes that using chatter from social media platforms will become a predominant tool for business forecasting.  Hertz told CNN at Names not Numbers (an idea-sharing and network conference in the UK), “Over the past few years I have been really quite obsessed with how technology is changing the way that we make sense of the world.”