While Google has helped track flu trends for the past few years and more recently has committed to track dengue fever, a new startup called Sickweather plans to track illnesses that occur within a user's circle of friends to help them stay well by avoiding contact with the infected. Sickweather taps into social networks like Twitter and Facebook to detect the presence of sick friends. While it's currently in beta testing, the service expects to launch next month. The free service hopes to use an ad-supported business model to generate revenue.

According to a report over at MIT's Technology Review, Sickweather will provide users with a map that show illnesses in their area, updates on friends' health and eventually mobile apps that make the information available to users on the go.

Sickweather CEO Graham Dodge told the Technology Review that the service has young families in mind: "They can decide, 'Maybe I won't take my kids to that birthday party.'"

The site uses Twitter's API to identify a user's particular location, but the startup's algorithm looks for keywords related to sickness including "bronchitis," pneumonia," and "pertussis," according to the writeup in the MIT Tech Review. (Can't say I've ever read the word pertussis in a tweet -- even among the many medical professionals we follow.)

More over at MIT's Technology Review