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Google Zeitgeist '05

Posted by Zonk on from the who-knew-janet-jackson-was-so-popular? dept.

Garett Rogers writes "Google has just released their Google Zeitgeist 2005. From the site: 'It turns out that looking at the aggregation of billions of search queries people type into Google reveals something about our curiosity, our thirst for news, and perhaps even our desires. Considering all that has occurred in 2005, we thought it would be interesting to study just a few of the significant events, and names that make this a memorable year. (We'll leave it to the historians to determine which ones are lasting and which ephemeral.) We hope you enjoy this selective view of our collective year.'"

7 of 240 comments (clear)

  1. Fluctuations by m85476585 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What are all the fluctuations in the graph? It is especially noticeable for Wikipedia. It looks like there are about 52 peaks per year. I wonder if there is more traffic to Google on weekends or during the week?

    1. Re:Fluctuations by CastrTroy · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Yes, if they just took their numbers and plotted a single data point for each week, with the sum, instead of putting a datapoint for each day, it would solve most of their problems. A neat thing that this shows, is that most of the searches are done during the week, when we are working. Does this lead us to believe that people really do spend all their time at work, just browsing the internet?

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      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
  2. where is.... by B3AST! · · Score: 4, Interesting

    porn?? that's should top the list...i search for that hundreds of thousands of times a day, i don't think i'm alone...i think this is RIGGED!!!

  3. Here's an idea by CastrTroy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I think we should start a distributed computing project to get weird searches on next years list. Stuff like "How do I join al qaeda" or "What is 1+1" or "HEIRHENO#*(_#()*_#". It would be interesting to see how many searches would need to be done to take down the searches.

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    Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
  4. ZZZ... Try Metaspy by Johnboi+Waltune · · Score: 3, Interesting

    For a more real-time view of what people are searching for, try Metaspy. It shows you what the last 10 search strings at Metacrawler were. There was nothing really suprising in the Google Zeitgiest report, but the stuff you'll see people searching for on Metaspy can really make you do a double-take.

    --
    "The advanced societies of the future will be driven by competing systems of psychopathology." -JG Ballard
  5. Re:Janet Jackson by timeOday · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Yup, and with the following list if top "news" searches, we can now conclusively conclude the actual levels of interest in such trifling issues as the war, energy policy, and whether the US is still governed by the rule of law:
    1. Janet Jackson
    2. Hurricane Katrina
    3. tsunami
    4. xbox 360
    5. Brad Pitt
    6. Michael Jackson
    7. American Idol
    8. Britney Spears
    9. Angelina Jolie
    10. Harry Potter
  6. Re:Interesting by evil+agent · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You mean at the whim of the New York Times. Why would the government want to release it now? It overshadowed one of the greatest news stories for them: the successful Iraqi elections.

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