i found this interesting but not very original another search engine can t remember which one tho was doing this a long time ago URL postcards from planet google internet the search engine is taking snapshots of its users minds and aggregating them so what is the world thinking about jennifer NUMBER lee at google s squat headquarters off route NUMBER visitors sit in the lobby transfixed by the words scrolling by on the wall behind the receptionist s desk animacio aac n japonese harry potter pense aac es et poemes associao brasileira de normas te aac cnicas 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 dutch italian _ any of the NUMBER languages that google tracks the scrolling continues people who shouldn t marry she smoked a cigar mr potatoheads in long island pickup lines to get women auto theft fraud how to stare at live query long enough and you feel 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 _ NUMBER million a day from more than NUMBER countries _ in its databases updating and storing the computer logs millisecond by millisecond google is taking snapshots of its users minds and aggregating them 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 craig silverstein director of technology at google to keep live query g rated google filters out sex related searches though less successfully with foreign languages despite its geographic and ethnic diversity the world is spending much of its time thinking about the same things the same topic areas bubble to the top celebrities current events products and computer downloads it s amazing how similar people are all over the world based on what they are searching for said greg rae one of three members of google s logs team which is responsible for building storing and protecting the data record google s following _ it is the most widely used search engine _ has given mr rae a worldview from his cubicle since october NUMBER he has been able to reel off anthrax in several languages including milzbrand in german and carbonchio in italian he says he can also tell which countries took their recent elections seriously brazil and germany because of the frenzy of searches he notes that the globalisation of consumer culture means that the most popular brands are far flung in origin nokia sony bmw ferrari ikea and microsoft judging from google s data some sports events stir interest almost everywhere the tour de france wimbledon the melbourne cup horse race and the world series were among the top NUMBER sports related searches last year it also becomes obvious just how familiar american movies music and celebrities are to searchers across the globe two years ago a google engineer named lucas pereira noticed that searches for britney spears had declined indicating what he thought must be a decline in her popularity from that observation grew google zeitgeist a listing of the top gaining and declining queries of each week and month glancing over google zeitgeist is like taking a trivia test in cultural literacy ulrika jonsson the swedish born british television host and girlfriend of england football coach sven goran eriksson made the list recently so did irish travellers a nomadic ethnic group one of whose members was videotaped beating her young daughter in indiana and fentanyl the narcotic gas used in the moscow raid to rescue hostages taken by chechen rebels in late october the long lasting volume of searches involving her name has made britney spears something of a benchmark for the logs team it has helped them understand how news can cause spikes in searches as it did when she broke up with justin timberlake google can feel the reverberations of such events and others of a more serious nature immediately on feb NUMBER NUMBER for example an earthquake began near seattle at NUMBER NUMBER am local time within two minutes earthquake related searches jumped to NUMBER a minute from almost none with a concentration in the us pacific northwest on sept NUMBER 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 trade center s destruction but the most trivial events may also register on google s sensitive cultural seismic meter the logs team came to work one morning to find that carol brady maiden name had surged to the top of the charts curious they mapped the searches by time of day and found that they were neatly grouped in five spikes each one starting at NUMBER minutes after the hour as the logs were passed through the office employees were perplexed why would there be a surge in interest in a character from the NUMBERs sitcom the brady bunch but the data could only reflect patterns not explain them that is a paradox of a google log it does not capture social phenomena per se but merely the shadows they cast across the internet the most interesting part is why said amit patel who has been a member of the logs team you can t interpret it unless you know what else is going on in the world so what had gone on on april NUMBER NUMBER that night the million dollar question on the game show who wants to be a millionaire had been what was carol brady s maiden name seconds after the show s host posed the question thousands flocked to google to search for the answer tyler producing four spikes as the show was broadcast successively in each us time zone the precision of the carol brady data was eye opening for some it was like trying an electron microscope for the first time said sergey brin who as a graduate student in computer science at stanford helped found google in NUMBER and is now its president for technology it was like a moment by moment barometer predictably 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 challenge is defining what we want to do google currently does not allow outsiders to gain access to raw data because of privacy concerns searches are logged by time of day originating ip address information that can be used to link searches to a specific computer and the sites on which the user clicked people tell things to search engines that they would never talk about publicly _ viagra pregnancy scares fraud facelifts what is interesting in the aggregate can be seem an invasion of privacy if narrowed to an individual in aggregate form google s data can make a stunning presentation next to mr rae s cubicle is the geodisplay a NUMBER inch screen that gives a three dimensional geographical representation of where google is being used around the globe the searches are represented by coloured dots shooting into the atmosphere the colours _ red yellow orange _ convey the impression of a globe whose major cities are on fire the tallest flames are in new york tokyo and the san francisco bay area each country has a distinctive usage pattern spain france and italy have a midday lull in google searches presumably reflecting leisurely lunches and relaxation in japan the peak usage is after midnight when phone rates for dial up modems drop google s worldwide scope means that the company can track ideas and phenomena as they hop from country to country take las ketchup a trio of singing sisters who became a sensation in spain last spring with a gibberish song and accompanying knee knocking dance similar to the macarena like a series of waves google searches for las ketchup undulated through europe over the summer and fall the ketchup song hey hah has already topped the charts in NUMBER countries in late summer google s logs show las ketchup searches began a strong upward climb in the united states britain and the netherlands haven t heard of las ketchup if you haven t google predicts you soon will rgrds bernard _______________________________________________ iiu mailing list iiu URL URL 