BenTheMan
11-23-07, 05:08 PM
Ok, I just discovered this wonderful tool, Google Trends. You type in a word, and it gives you a histogram of how many times people have searched this string in the past, on a monthly(ish) basis.
Despite all of the fun one could have with this, I thought it would be interesting to look at a few examples, and see if there are any yearly trends in people searching for things, and what this could possibly teach us about human online behavior.
First, (because I'm a guy) porn (http://www.google.com/trends?q=porn&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0[/url), and sex (http://www.google.com/trends?q=sex&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0). There seems to be an unmistakable spike at the end of each year, around December or so.
Next, suicide (http://www.google.com/trends?q=suicide&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0). The stereotype is that people are more suicidal during the holidays, but there seems to be a huge spike in 2005 around Valentine's Day. And, true to form, the city that searched ``suicide'' most often was Seattle.
Physics (http://www.google.com/trends?q=physics&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0) seems to get a huge drop-off every summer (as one might expect), and snow (http://www.google.com/trends?q=snow&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0) has a pretty predictable pattern.
Other topics are cearly driven by the news. Searching Iraq (http://www.google.com/trends?q=Iraq&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0), Beckham (http://www.google.com/trends?q=Beckham&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0), and Al Gore (http://www.google.com/trends?q=al+gore&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0) pretty much turns up results which correlate with major news stories.
Anyone else have any interesting correlations? So far it seems that people want to know about snow in the winter, anything but physics in the summer, porn when it's cold, and things that are in the news.
Despite all of the fun one could have with this, I thought it would be interesting to look at a few examples, and see if there are any yearly trends in people searching for things, and what this could possibly teach us about human online behavior.
First, (because I'm a guy) porn (http://www.google.com/trends?q=porn&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0[/url), and sex (http://www.google.com/trends?q=sex&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0). There seems to be an unmistakable spike at the end of each year, around December or so.
Next, suicide (http://www.google.com/trends?q=suicide&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0). The stereotype is that people are more suicidal during the holidays, but there seems to be a huge spike in 2005 around Valentine's Day. And, true to form, the city that searched ``suicide'' most often was Seattle.
Physics (http://www.google.com/trends?q=physics&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0) seems to get a huge drop-off every summer (as one might expect), and snow (http://www.google.com/trends?q=snow&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0) has a pretty predictable pattern.
Other topics are cearly driven by the news. Searching Iraq (http://www.google.com/trends?q=Iraq&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0), Beckham (http://www.google.com/trends?q=Beckham&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0), and Al Gore (http://www.google.com/trends?q=al+gore&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0) pretty much turns up results which correlate with major news stories.
Anyone else have any interesting correlations? So far it seems that people want to know about snow in the winter, anything but physics in the summer, porn when it's cold, and things that are in the news.