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2004 Year-End Google Zeitgeist
krgallagher writes "Google has published their Year-End Zeitgeist. In their own words, 'Based on billions of searches conducted by Google users around the world, the 2004 Year-End Zeitgeist offers a unique perspective on the year's major events and trends. We hope you enjoy this aggregate look at what people wanted to know more about this year.' The number one search for all of 2004 is britney spears."
When the human race evolves into an intelligent species?
Actually, the top four queries were all women: Spears, Hilton, Aguilera, Anderson. I think they image search results might be skewing the data. :D
Britney Spears is the top search..and scroll down a bit to "top company searches" to see that SCO is in the lead. This confirms my theory that people are fascinated with stupidity in all it's forms.
We have the ability to keep knowledge of some of the greatest minds, and provide that knowledge to everyone? But no! "What's that little girl singing about? Let's put her on a CD, to be kept forever!"
I wish I had the exact quote, but it felt fitting to find out that this is what people want to know about on the Internet.
Lovely.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
maybe because there is a world outside the US ?
:/
And the world series for cricket really does mean world series, not all the teams in the US and 4 from Canada.. North America isn't the world.
So you take the population of India about 1/4th and ask them what their favorite pasttime is.. it's cricket. combine that with sri lanka, south africa, australia, england etc.. and you get a lot of people who have internet access etc, know about google and search for events regarding a sport thats played by more people than who play baseball/american football, or polo
Popular Queries
2004
1. britney spears
2. paris hilton
Top Public Figures
2004
1. george w bush
2. janet jackson
3. john kerry
4. britney spears
Shouldn't britney spears be the top of every list she qualifies for in the zeitgeist if her name is the most popular term overall?
And Google is a publicly owned company with a worldwide reach. It's not just for English speakers.
~stephen
http://slinky259.blogspot.com
In previous years they did exactly that
Where's that data for this year?
Without it all this crap is near useless.
I'm a chainsmokin' alcoholic sociopath, so-ci-o-path
I bet that if they had a "Popular Image Queries" list there would be several porn queries on it. A porn query might even be on the #1 spot. Unfortunately you they just have specific categories. Note that there is no "Popular News Queries" list either (only categories) so you can't say that they decided to not have a general image query list just because of porn.
All but a handful of the top-ranking searches required only one or two familiar keywords to yield meaningful results, a proper name, a place, a single object of interest, such as a sport like cricket.
But will the Zeitgeist total queries that ask the same question in many different ways because users don't know the keywords needed to define and limit their search?
But that shouldn't be surprising at all. If you're a scholar, perhaps you'll search for Marting Heidegger and Jacques Derrida. But hey, maybe not. Maybe you're into computer science and OS design. Or maybe some particular marxist historian, a religious thinker, problems in geology, or the writing of T. S. Eliot or even that of Norman Mailer. But it's pretty fucking unlikely that you're interested in all of these, or that you'd actually believe you could find useful information about Heidegger on the intarweb.
A different person would probably come up with very different examples. You can specialize in lots of stuff, and most of this is of no interest to the general population.
On the other hand, if you're searching for stuff that you're not really that interested in, it's more likely to be on Google's list of top searches. Come to think of it, I'm quite sure I've contributed to the list after thinking: 'Who is Paris Hilton, and why should I care?' I think many people must have been asking the same question this year. Of course, this isn't so much because people are stupid as it is because the media is a huge family of incestuous whores, and Spears, Hilton, et al are perfectly adapted to that environment, as parasites living in the media's collective jizz.
I can't believe eBay was so high up the list. Seriously, how many people google for eBay? Is eBay.com (or ebay.{your country's domain ending here}) that hard to remember?
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
And I think it's wonderful. It helps elevate writing into art instead of mere formulaic transmission of information. And the incredible variety of words is what makes English such a delightfully expressive language. It's a gift to be reveled in, and my hat's off to Google for selecting the perfect word for the occasion.
I don't get the distinction you're trying to draw. Both words came from German. One is used more often than the other. Does that make it more native? What, specifically, is your definition of nativeness in a language where almost all words are borrowed?
I didn't "have" to; I linked to it so that you could see it was there, because you seemed to be having vocabulary problems.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
Why did you have to use a fancy old French word like "nuance", instead of just "meaning", which would have worked in that context?
If you don't understand why they're using it, I don't think you fully appreciate what zeitgeist means.
It is pretty much the only word we have that conveys the notion of "spirit of the times". (It would literally translate as "time ghost".) In some sense, it was the lack of a suitable word in english that resulted in the german word being added to our dictionary.
A "year-end summary" doesn't properly convey the idea that we are seeing a snapshot of the underlying culture and interests of the period.
Grammar Nazi do not produce insight, they just point out a grammatical error so they can think that they are so smart. Hey, look at me I am smart because I know the rules of grammar. I don't have to think for myself because I know the rules of grammar. I can prove anyone who makes a mistake in grammar wrong because I know about grammar. Congradulations! You are a successful graduate of public schools, My hat off to you, that you can regurgitate information better then most. To bad this aspect of learning doesn't help with thinking for yourself.
This is my first time looking at this annual data, and the most striking thing about it is how vanilla it is.
There is nothing interesting going on; it appears most people are depressingly mundane in their interests and tastes. Where are all the 'rugged individualists', the 'rebels without a cause'? As much as we pay lip service to our desire to stand-out, we are strangely sheepish.
I am begining to believe Asimov's 'The Marching Morons' is, in fact nonfiction...
This is why all marketing is incredibly stupid, because it is based on the most common attribute in order to maximize profits.
Conversely, we have the technology today to automate the personalization of products - which, strange as it may seem, would actually produce more profit (consider, not only would we gather all of the vanilla folks, we would also pull in those wanting unique attributes: X + Y > X every time). Yet most, if not all businesses refrain from this approach.
Given that - this data is useless to me, other than to make me look around at my fellow men and women for the tell-tale vacuous stare.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
With pornography and sex related items being some of the most popular queries for search engines, why do they never seem to make it in to Google Zeitgeist?
slashdot!=valid HTML
there is simply no mentions of the iraq war and the US elections? looks like something is wrong somewhere as these two were heavy issues this year...
Okay Mods! That was meant to be funny.