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Google Zeitgeist '05
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.'"
Am I missing something? What is Janet Jackson doing at the top of the search list?
Those who anthropomorphize science and/or nature already believe in an intelligent designer.
Position 1 could be orders of magnitude more searched for than position 2.
On the other hand, position 1000 could have nearly as many searches as position 10...
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
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?
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!!!
Firefox isn't there at all! What about the release of Firefox 1.5?
I think they forgot Star_Wars_Bootleg.torrent...
I bet some of the terms will stay in the top 10 because idiots like me didn't know what baidu, Ares and orkut meant and looked them up on Google.
Steve Ballmer's top search: 1. Chair Aerodynamics
How in the hell is Janet Jackson the top search? I understand everyone wants to see her nipple but that was in 2004... the begining of 2004 (February 1, 2004). Get over it.
I could understand Micheal Jackson for his strangeness. The man is like a walking car accident, we have to look. But the top search being Janet is insane.
The Internet is the Holy Grail of nudity, searching for one womans half covered nipple is really cuddling the complex nature of Googles Algorithm. Make your searches interesting, like "Bea Arthur humping a Camel" or "Shannon Doherty doing coke off a dead hookers butt" Make the people at Google work.
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.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I guess more people would like to get their information from a more objective source of news rather than the American media which has been blackmailed, threatened, cajoled, etc. from actually questioning the policies and actions of the US government.
-- If it isn't broken, you haven't let my users have a crack at it yet --
Apparently even the mighty Google couldn't find these things.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
We'll know things have turned around when instead of "Janet Jackson" the top searches include "25th Amendment" and "impeachment."
The people that read through my Google search history are really going to wonder why those two phrases appear together on an otherwise innocent, idle Tuesday afternoon.
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
Last time I checked, it was the media's responsibility to report the news, and your responsibility to question government policies. Are you so lazy as to want the reporters to do your job for you? Are you so foolish as to think that the media can be trusted to discharge your responsibilities better than you can yourself?
It is the media's job to report when experts disagree with Government policy. BBC does this, CNN doesn't do so as often. Fox rarely does this at all.
Plus, how can a news source be simultaneously objective and questioning policy?
Look at a BBC news report. They will state something like: Expert A disagrees with Policy X, stating that it will have dire consequences for Issue Y. However, Expert B disagrees, stating it will dramatically improve Factor Z.
Plus, what makes you think that the BBC is immune from whatever market forces, black-hearted corruption, or government pressure you believe plagues CNN?
The BBC is independent of the Government and any corporate influence. If the BBC misreports something, there is an inquiry. If they accept money for a report, heads roll. The BBC's independent nature is what allows it to be impartial.
We can't really get into your proof of these allegations (that the U.S. government is pressuring the U.S. media to run biased coverage) since, presumably, you'd simply point out that now that they control the media, they're hiding the proof, too!
I doubt the US Government is directly influencing the media, however US media has a reputation for chest-thumping "patriotism" (earning CNN the moniker of "the Combat News Network"). Look at the run-up to the Iraq war. While news outlets around the world were doubting the existence of WMD in Iraq, and quoting experts that stated they didn't exist, most US media outlets were extolling the virtues of invading Iraq. It was truly appalling. Even the New York Times, which is usually as unbiased as the BBC, was reporting WMDs as fact. I don't know if this is due to consumer pressure, corporate pressure, Government pressure, or simply nationalistic short-sightedness, but it disgusted people around the world.