Slashdot Mirror
A Peek Into the Google
A number of people sent in the most recent story from the NYTimes (reg yada yada) from a reporter
who visited the Google-land. Interesting story, no real information though, but the ability to see what people are thinking about and interested in is pretty cool.
Its amazing that most people of the world search for similar things, irrespective of language! Good they put filters.... otherwise a normal visitor would be shocked that most of the world wants naked ladies.
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
this together with the link to a registered users only article is pretty funny.
On request whether Google gets subpoenas for giving out personal information:
"Google does not comment on the details of legal matters involving Google," Mr. Brin responded.
This is most interesting, and one can only assume that since they're US based, at some point they will/can be forced to give out data for crossreferencing Gov't databases. Imagine [insert gov't agency here] gets hold of the IP-address of [insert (suspected unamerican/criminal/terrorist) person here] they can easily extract profiling information on the individual.
Scary
Bodø community site
AT Google's squat headquarters off Route 101, visitors sit in the lobby, transfixed by the words scrolling by on the wall behind the receptionist's desk: animación japonese Harry Potter pensées et poèmes associação brasileira de normas técnicas.
The projected display, called Live Query, shows updated samples of what people around the world are typing into Google's search engine. The terms scroll by in English, Chinese, Spanish, Swedish, Japanese, Korean, French, Dutch, Italian - any of the 86 languages that Google tracks.
people who shouldn't marry "she smoked a cigar" mr. potatoheads in long island pickup lines to get women auto theft fraud how to.
Stare at Live Query long enough, and you feel that you are watching the collective consciousness of the world stream by.
Each line represents a thought from someone, somewhere with an Internet connection. Google collects these queries - 150 million a day from more than 100 countries - in its databases, updating and storing the computer logs millisecond by millisecond.
Google is taking snapshots of its users' minds and aggregating them. Like a flipbook that emerges when successive images are strung together, the logged data tell a story.
So what is the world thinking about?
Sex, for one thing.
"You can learn to say 'sex' in a lot of different languages by looking at the logs," said Craig Silverstein, director of technology at Google. (To keep Live Query G-rated, Google filters out sex-related searches, though less successfully with foreign languages.)
Despite its geographic and ethnic diversity, the world is spending much of its time thinking about the same things. Country to country, region to region, day to day and even minute to minute, the same topic areas bubble to the top: celebrities, current events, products and computer downloads.
"It's amazing how similar people are all over the world based on what they are searching for," said Greg Rae, one of three members of Google's logs team, which is responsible for building, storing and protecting the data record.
Google's following - it is the most widely used search engine -- has given Mr. Rae a worldview from his cubicle. Since October 2001, he has been able to reel off "anthrax" in several languages: milzbrand (German), carbonchio (Italian), miltvuur (Dutch), antrax (Spanish). He says he can also tell which countries took their recent elections seriously (Brazil and Germany), because of the frenzy of searches. He notes that the globalization of consumer culture means that the most popular brands are far-flung in origin: Nokia, Sony, BMW, Ferrari, Ikea and Microsoft.
Judging from Google's data, some sports events stir interest almost everywhere: the Tour de France, Wimbledon, the Melbourne Cup horse race and the World Series were all among the top 10 sports-related searches last year. It also becomes obvious just how familiar American movies, music and celebrities are to searchers across the globe. Two years ago, a Google engineer named Lucas Pereira noticed that searches for Britney Spears had declined, indicating what he thought must be a decline in her popularity. From that observation grew Google Zeitgeist, a listing of the top gaining and declining queries of each week and month.
Glancing over Google Zeitgeist is like taking a trivia test in cultural literacy: Ulrika Jonsson (a Swedish-born British television host), made the list recently, as did Irish Travelers (a nomadic ethnic group, one of whose members was videotaped beating her young daughter in Indiana) and fentanyl (the narcotic gas used in the Moscow raid to rescue hostages taken by Chechen rebels in late October).
The long-lasting volume of searches involving her name has made Ms. Spears something of a benchmark for the logs team. It has helped them understand how news can cause spikes in searches, as it did when she broke up with Justin Timberlake.
Google can feel the reverberations of such events, and others of a more serious nature, immediately.
On Feb. 28, 2001, for example, an earthquake began near Seattle at 10:54 a.m. local time. Within two minutes, earthquake-related searches jumped to 250 a minute from almost none, with a concentration in the Pacific Northwest. On Sept. 11, searches for the World Trade Center, Pentagon and CNN shot up immediately after the attacks. Over the next few days, Nostradamus became the top search query, fueled by a rumor that Nostradamus had predicted the trade center's destruction.
But the most trivial events may also register on Google's sensitive cultural seismic meter.
The logs team came to work one morning to find that "carol brady maiden name" had surged to the top of the charts.
Curious, they mapped the searches by time of day and found that they were neatly grouped in five spikes: biggest, small, small, big and finally, after a long wait, another small blip. Each spike started at 48 minutes after the hour.
As the logs were passed through the office, employees were perplexed. Why would there be a surge in interest in a character from the 1970's sitcom "The Brady Bunch"? But the data could only reflect patterns, not explain them.
That is a paradox of a Google log: it does not capture social phenomena per se, but merely the shadows they cast across the Internet.
"The most interesting part is why," said Amit Patel, who has been a member of the logs team. "You can't interpret it unless you know what else is going on in the world."
So what had gone on on April 22, 2001?
That night the million-dollar question on the game show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" had been, "What was Carol Brady's maiden name?" Seconds after the show's host, Regis Philbin, posed the question, thousands flocked to Google to search for the answer (Tyler), producing four spikes as the show was broadcast successively in each time zone.
And that last little blip?
"Hawaii," Mr. Patel said.
The precision of the Carol Brady data was eye-opening for some.
"It was like trying an electron microscope for the first time," said Sergey Brin, who as a graduate student in computer science at Stanford helped found Google in 1998 and is now its president for technology. "It was like a moment-by-moment barometer."
Predictably, Google's query data respond to television, movies and radio. But the mass media also feed off the demands of their audiences. One of Google's strengths is its predictive power, flagging trends before they hit the radar of other media.
As such it could be of tremendous value to entertainment companies or retailers. Google is quiet about what if any plans it has for commercializing its vast store of query information. "There is tremendous opportunity with this data," Mr. Silverstein said. "The challenge is defining what we want to do."
The search engine Lycos, which produces a top 50 list of its most popular searches, is already exploring potential commercial opportunities. "There is a lot of interest from marketing people," said Aaron Schatz, who writes a daily column on trends for Lycos. "They want to see if their product is appearing. What is the next big thing?"
Google currently does not allow outsiders to gain access to raw data because of privacy concerns. Searches are logged by time of day, originating I.P. address (information that can be used to link searches to a specific computer), and the sites on which the user clicked. People tell things to search engines that they would never talk about publicly - Viagra, pregnancy scares, fraud, face lifts. What is interesting in the aggregate can be seem an invasiion of privacy if narrowed to an individual.
So, does Google ever get subpoenas for its information?
"Google does not comment on the details of legal matters involving Google," Mr. Brin responded.
In aggregate form, Google's data can make a stunning presentation. Next to Mr. Rae's cubicle is the GeoDisplay, a 40-inch screen that gives a three-dimensional geographical representation of where Google is being used around the globe. The searches are represented by colored dots shooting into the atmosphere. The colors - red, yellow, orange - convey the impression of a globe whose major cities are on fire. The tallest flames are in New York, Tokyo and the San Francisco Bay Area.
Pinned up next to the GeoDisplay are two charts depicting Google usage in the United States throughout the day. For searches as a whole, there is a single peak at 5 p.m. For sex-related searches, there is a second peak at 11 p.m.
Each country has a distinctive usage pattern. Spain, France and Italy have a midday lull in Google searches, presumably reflecting leisurely lunches and relaxation. In Japan, the peak usage is after midnight - an indication that phone rates for dial-up modems drop at that time.
Google's worldwide scope means that the company can track ideas and phenomena as they hop from country to country.
Take Las Ketchup, a trio of singing sisters who became a sensation in Spain last spring with a gibberish song and accompanying knee-knocking dance similar to the Macarena.
Like a series of waves, Google searches for Las Ketchup undulated through Europe over the summer and fall, first peaking in Spain, then Italy, then Germany and France.
"The Ketchup Song (Hey Hah)" has already topped the charts in 18 countries. A ring tone is available for mobile phones. A parody of the song that mocks Chancellor Gerhard Schröder for raising taxes has raced to the top of the charts in Germany.
In late summer, Google's logs show, Las Ketchup searches began a strong upward climb in the United States, Britain and the Netherlands.
Haven't heard of Las Ketchup?
If you haven't, Google predicts you soon will.
Which is why the Internet Police in China have set-up a proxy server running an adaptive filtering matrix between the mainland Googler and the oracle in Mountainview.
http://go.openflows.org
Its amazing that most people of the world search for similar things, irrespective of language! Good they put filters.... otherwise a normal visitor would be shocked that most of the world wants naked ladies.
How about an E2 zeitgeist? Cream of the cool is close, but it would be interesting to see what people are searching for as well as what they are contributing. I sometimes even check E2 before Google, because at least there is some active quality control on E2 nodes, unlike the web at large.
It is amazing how many of the searches that are described in the article I have executed myself.
I guess that you can really find out what is going on in the world by looking at the logs of Google.
Director of Operations. He said they use Linux because it's cheap and because they get better support.
When asked how they can get better support for Linux, he answered, "We're Google, if we need to know something about the Linux we are running, we can usually find the guy who wrote the code and ask him."
Must be nice...
One of the other search engines (Altavista?) used to let you see 20 random queries while you were thinking what to type into the search field. A lot of that used to be "boobies" or "Kelly Brook naked" as I seem to recall.
--- Hell hath no fury like a Heron in a boob-tube ---
Pay? How do you figure that out? I registered, it is free after all. Why did you register here on slashdot, then?
J.
Metacrawler's Metaspy. Check out what people are searching for on Metacrawler. Choosing the "Metaspy Exposed" option allows you to see unfiltered queries; a surprising number of them are quite shady. ;)
I'm constantly amazed at the lengths people go to in the states to avoid offending people.
Wouldnt it be better to let people know the true extent of peoples e-desires rather than filtering them out for fear of suprising some prudes?
Jan.
I've often wondered if it were possible to get the live display to say something shocking, or possibly display an ASCII image, just by submitting a carefully timed stream of queries.
Looking at the 2001 Zeitgeist I see disturbing trend:
Top women searches:
Britney Spears, Pamela Anderson, Jennifer Lopez, Madonna & Aaliyah.
And top men searches:
Nostradamus, Bin Laden, Enimen, Michael Jackson & Howard Stern.
Is beard in?
Google Searches #1
/. favourite)
OK so this is a bit off topic but I found the following searches on google rather interesting:
gfasd: 36 matches
fgasd: 24 matches
adfsfds: 10 matches
sdfassdf: 6 matches
fsdaasdf: 4 matches
So what are these searches? Well, just jam your fingers on the keyboard and do a search on that. Most people jam their fingers in the same place (left hand, middle row) and if enough people fill in web pages with garbage then matches are bound to be found. The surprise is the number of times this works.
Google Searches #2
Try using Google with the following links:
Swedish Chef
Elmer Fudd
Pig Latin
Klingon
H4xor (the
wot no sig
I had to... My first Google query after having seen this article has been "mind your own business :-)"
This message doesn't need a sig
- comply and register.
- karma whore and post the article.
- wait for the unregister link.
- wait for the karma whore to post the article.
- don't both to read and just post whats on my mind.
- wait for cowboyneal to read it to me.
Hey, that GeoDisplay sounds pretty cool, why don't they put that on the web?
Skiing? Check out The Independant Skiers Portal
What, if a story isn't packed with a blow-by-blow technical orgy, it doesn't have any "real information?" This story has lots of good stuff. Thanks for the link.
That is a paradox of a Google log: it does not capture social phenomena per se, but merely the shadows they cast across the Internet.
Wow. Google has implemented Plato's Cave.
http://www.vrc.iastate.edu/why.html
Over at Webmaster World there's some great discussions ongoing about how search engines like Google work. There's even a tiny bit of inside information, thanks to the regular posts in their Google forum from forum member Google Guy.
ancarett, historian and zombie gamer
I propose that there should be one common slashdot login at the NYTimes.
- Martin
In case people were wondering what the Japanese section of the google zeitgeist translated to:
1. Ragnarok (e.g. Ragnarok Online, an MMORPG)
2. Gundam
3. ADSL
4. Tanaka Kouichi (A pioneer in Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy who recently won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry)
5. Nobel Prize
6. JA Net banking (online banking at JA bank)
7. Harry Potter
8. Shimadzu Factory (FYI, Tanaka Kouichi works at Shimadzu)
9. Ring tones
10. North Korea
Curiously, a Google News search does not currently turn up the NYT article on Google, but does turn up this Slashdot thread on the NYT article on Google. I mention this because when you follow a Google news link to the NYT, you don't need to register (partner site).
Sigs are bad for your health.
This, and more tricks at the google weblog.
Great job, Aaron Swartz!
Fh
This article (and any number of other tech articles from the NYT) has the byline Jennifer 8. Lee. Would someone mind explaining to me why her middle initial is a number? Did she name herself after the movie with Andy Garcia and Uma Thurman? Is Neuromancer involved in any way? I wanna know!
"The deep-fried Mars bar is a symptom of a wider crisis." -- Nutritionist Ann Ralph, on the Scottish diet
first post
Sex, for one thing."
It is amusing when people looking for sex find this link:
Sex - Find It
"Mr. Poindexter is pursuing a scheme he thought up right after 9/11 and then sold to the Bush administration. Total Information Awareness, or T.I.A., aims to use the vast networking powers of the computer to 'mine' huge amounts of information about people and thus help investigative agencies identify potential terrorists and anticipate terrorist activities. All the transactions of everyday life -- credit card purchases, travel and telephone records, even Internet traffic like e-mail -- would be grist for the electronic mill." -- New York Times editorial, 18 November 2002
"Google currently does not allow outsiders to gain access to raw data because of privacy concerns. Searches are logged by time of day, originating I.P. address (information that can be used to link searches to a specific computer), and the sites on which the user clicked. People tell things to search engines that they would never talk about publicly -- Viagra, pregnancy scares, fraud, face lifts. What is interesting in the aggregate can seem an invasion of privacy if narrowed to an individual.
"So, does Google ever get subpoenas for its information? 'Google does not comment on the details of legal matters involving Google,' Mr. Brin responded." -- New York Times, 28 November 2002
Question: What would be the fastest, most efficient, and most revealing approach to data mining the Internet?
Answer: Pay Google for a back-door feed on who's searching for what.
Question: Has Google ever, in their entire existence, issued any sort of statement suggesting that their sense of public responsibility would preclude being used in this way, or that the information they collect would never be sold for a price?
Answer: No.
Question: If Google decided to sell out, could they be held liable for privacy violations? Would we even find out about it?
Answer: No. The Homeland Security Act exempts companies from lawsuits or government prosecution after they turn over information to the new agency. Such information is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act. Officials who release this information can get up to six months in prison and a $5,000 fine.
Something wrong - I did manchester and neither rain nor wet turned up!
Here's how Google can make money:
;).
1) Pipe livequeries through fancy perl script.
2) Figure out what stocks/commodities/stuff to buy/sell before everyone else does.
3) Profit!
Didn't put ??? for 2), coz people may mistake it for the perl script
I was on the .us version of the show (back when it was still cool) but didn't make it into the "hot seat." I think some of the other contestants had a "Google buddy" at home but I said to hell with it, they either know the answer or they don't. Just get five people--at least here they let you have five--who are quick, have good hearing, and whose areas of knowledge don't overlap too much.
Seriously, have you ever seen the "Google buddy" tactic actually work? It takes way more than 30 seconds to find the data and communicate both ways. Wetware is still faster than that.
Yet he did register, he didn't even have to.
So by your logic:
If I am not forced to register, I will.
If I am forced to register, I will not!