Google Trends - Can't Get Enough

This Google Trends thing has grabbed me like a catfish. I've definitely been enjoying it. My interest here has been a massive spike over the past three days since my first post on the topic. In fact, my interest and use of google/trends is exactly represented by the world's interest in Walter Mondale. Spooky, right?

Coincidental as that may be, it's clear I'm well behind the curve on this one. Entering "Google Trends" in google/trends indicates the big spike was back in April of 2006 when they launched.

In a spiral down the meta-toilet, I was also curious how many times people Google Google. As it turns out, it's been steadily on the rise.

Google Trends Dirty

This much dugg screen shot comes from Google trends. Being curious/skeptical, I checked and sho-nuff - the world got real curious about "anal fisting" abruptly at the start of 2006. Specifically, Prague and pretty much all of the Czech Republic got real into anal fisting. Truly weird.

Once you start screwing around with Google Trends, it's really engrossing. For example, the trend for "hangover cure" has massive spikes around the holiday season and the leading cities are the stereotypically drunken centers of English language: Dublin, Edinburgh, Manchester, London... In fact, there are only two U.S. cities in the top ten...

For "police brutality" as a search term, 10 out of 10 top cities are in the U.S. Chicago tops the list and Minneapolis beats out L.A. for second place.

A search on the word "hymen" reveals Iran is very interested in this topic and the U.S. is 10th behind mostly Muslim nations. We are losing the war in born-again virgins.