Peering into Google's kitchen

Data compiled by Google in tracking online behaviour (which underpins their search engine) just might represent the grandest research project ever undertaken. Because we all use Google so much, peering into that data Google can learn so much, about so many things, well it just boggles the mind.

This would be a bit scary to me if not for the fact that Google continues to release amazing tools we can all use to benefit from Google’s amassed observational data and links to information. If you are not sure what I mean, perhaps you should visit Google Books, Google Scholar, Google University Search, Google Zeitgeist, Google Maps, Google Earth…

Another new toy is Google Trends. If you are interested in consumer behaviour, marketing, trend watching, or nerdy stuff in general, then you will love this. Specify a word and Google Trends reports the historical frequency of the word’s use in web searches, over time and from primarily which places. By letting us into this nice little cupboard in the Google data kitchen, Google allows us to see, in broad strokes, who is searching for what, and when.

It gets better.

Try multiple search terms, separated by commas, and the results for all the terms are charted together for comparison. For example, to gauge variations in online interest in major Brisbane universities, I searched for this: qut, griffith university, uq

qut     griffith university    uq  

 

How cool is that?

Using Google Trends we can roughly compare the relative online and regional popularity of any:
brands,
products,
trends,
bands,
vices or
ice-cream flavours we can think of.

Did I mention that I like this thing?