Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Google Hot Trends

Google just released a new feature as part of their Google Trends homepage. (Google Trends was released in mid-2006, showing search query frequency – lacking the absolute number of searchers – over time. Its data by and large is not up-to-date.) It’s called Hot Trends and contains, according to Google, “a list of the current top 100 fastest-rising Google search queries in the U.S.” Google claims this is an automated list, as opposed to their existing manual Zeitgeist reports – however, I’m not perfectly sure that means it’s unfiltered (for adult searches) too.

The current top 20 rising search queries are the following – note that I kept Google’s links in-tact, so each query will take you to a special Trends query page aggregating information from blogs, homepages and news reports:

1. dancing with the stars winner
2. american idol winner (This search query peaked 8 hours ago, Google’s info page says, and has a current “hotness” level of “spicy”.)
3. on the lot
4. who won american idol
5. nba mock draft
6. amy sedaris
7. karishma dhanak
8. this is my now
9. scott krippayne
10. justis richert
11. jesse stone
12. julianne hough
13. nba lottery
14. kevin durant
15. portland trailblazers
16. soapworks
17. the bachelor after the final rose
18. apolo ohno
19. michael martin murphy
20. sleepy willy

Many of the top things people are concerned over, as we can see from Google searches, are related to the entertainment/ TV/ sports sector.

This looks like an interesting tool so far. Hashim comments, “this Hot Trends feature gives me a bunch of terms I can search for before I even realize that I want to search for them.” Now, non-US users will be likely wanting to get their own Hot Trends. What I would like most to see be added, however, is a global Hot Trends feature... we’d see the tip of the enormous “database of intentions” (John Battelle) which Google hosts.

In related news, Google also now allows you to drill down the location to a state level in Google Trends for many countries.

Ongoing comments

[Thanks Heather and Search-Engines-Web!]

Google Hot Trends by Philipp Lenssen

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