What's the world thinking about? Sex, for one thing
Google's logs show that despite diversity in geography and ethnicity, people search for the same things
MOUNTAIN VIEW (California) - At Google's headquarters here, visitors sit in the lobby, transfixed by the words scrolling by on the wall behind the receptionist's desk: animacion, japonese, Harry Potter, brasileira de normas, tecnicas.
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 - any of the 86 languages that Google tracks.
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, storing the computer logs millisecond by millisecond.
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 Mr Craig Silverstein, director of technology at Google.
Despite its geographic and ethnic diversity, the world is spending much of its time thinking about the same things. Country to country, day to day, even minute to minute, the same topics bubble to the top: celebrities, current events, computer downloads.
People all over the world are very similar, based on what they search for, said Mr Greg Rae, one of three members of Google's logs team, which is responsible for building, storing and protecting the data record.
Judging from Google's data, some sports events stir interest almost everywhere: the Tour de France, Wimbledon, the Melbourne Cup horse race and the baseball World Series were among the top 10 sports-related searches last year.
It also becomes obvious just how familiar American movies, music and celebrities are to searchers worldwide.
Google can also feel the reverberations of big events immediately.
On Feb 28, 2001, for example, an earthquake began near Seattle at 10.54 am local time. Within two minutes, earthquake-related searches jumped to 250 a minute from almost none.
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, fuelled by a rumour that Nostradamus had predicted the Twin Towers' destruction.
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 commercialising its vast store of query information. 'There is tremendous opportunity with this data,' Mr Silverstein said. --The New York Times |
