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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 will it ever end?
Man is a slave because freedom is difficult, whereas slavery is easy.
Is my browser stats.
(No, I don't want stats from some other site. I want them from the Zeitgeist!)
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.
The unfiltered top 10:
1. britney spears nude
2. paris hilton nude
3. christina aguilera nude
4. pamela anderson nude
5. adult chat
6. games warez
7. carmen electra nude
8. orlando bloom nude
9. harry potter warez
10. mp3 warez
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
Geez, everything is entertainment related, with almost no educational value - unless of course the mp3 search is for people looking into how various compression algorithms work. Sometimes, I think I've found the reason why the world is going screwy. Maybe not.
I'm rather upset that I don't even appear in the top 10 popular men. When will people recognise me? Maybe I'll have to kill a bunch of people...?
Get your own free personal location tracker
Wow, this zeitgeist really sucks now. It's focused on nothing but search info, which I guess is expected from Google - but demographic information be damned, it seems. They should be looking to gather more information on things like browser, OS, country, etc. Just throwing a load of search terms on a page isn't particularly compelling, especially when they're all so predictable.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
The #2 item on local health searches is "hospital". You can just picture millions of people turning to Google before thinking of dialing 911!!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"...and lo, a woman-child child shall be born, and she shall wear a head-dress of round plasic globes on her head as a child....upon the maturation of this child, when the platic globes are removed from her head and become infused in her chest....the end of the world shall surely be near...."
:)
I'm parphrasing...but it's something like that I'm sure
A goal is a dream with a deadline
britney spears is the most popular query, but it's 4th on the list of public figures, while paris hilton did not even make the list.
On the tech stuff category, *kazaa* is the first one and *mp3* the third one, yet *kazaa* did not even make it to the most popular queries one, while mp3 is the tenth string most searched for.There are also other inconsistencies, between for example the *most popular male* category and *most popular male celebrity*. (btw, what's the diff?)
Can somebody shed some insight into this?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
It's clear now. We'll be seeing a lot more of britney spears and paris hilton in bikinis, mini skirts and prom dresses... possibly while they watch CNN, the simpsons, or listen to 'YMCA' on their ipods.
So since George W. Bush was the number one public figure search, and John Kerry was third, behind Janet Jackson, can we assume that if Janet Jackson had run for president, she would have had a better chance of winning than John Kerry?
Maybe if the elections were held closer to the Superbowl.
do you really have to ask? (NSFW)
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?
The rules of cricket are actually quite simple, and deftly explained here.
The Rules of Cricket as Explained to a foreign visitor
You have two sides, one out in the field and one in.
Each man that's in the side that's in, goes out, and when he's out, he comes in and the next man goes in until he's out.
When they are all out the side that's out comes in and the side that's been in goes out and tries to get those coming in out.
Sometimes you get men still in and not out.
When both sides have been in and out including the not-outs, that's the end of the game.
This description of the game is remarkably accurate.
What I find interesting is that some people use google to go ebay, cnn, bbc. Many people are using google not as a search engine, but as a quicker way to get to a site than typing www.cnn.com (or even cnn.com). I find it hard to believe that sooo many people don't know the URL for ebay or cnn. Even the BBC has a .com domain!
It might have to do with the fact that many people use google as their home page (or have a google search box in the browser).
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
What a frickin time to release such a list when my wife's standing behind me wondering what the hell is keeping me while being devoid of any interest towards what she is saying:
Paris Hilton, Britney, Carmen and Pamela.. Oh Crap!!
I turn around in time to see her look turn in to disgust with the "You and your pervert buddies scored yet again this year!!" before she stomped off in to the kitchen..
Aaargh..time to take care of the History folder..
Rapid Nirvana
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