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Google Correlate - Draw

223 points| mshafrir | 12 years ago |google.com | reply

63 comments

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[+] _delirium|12 years ago|reply
This is a great brainstorming tool for doing light blogspam-style "journalism", if your readers don't know about it (which they probably don't). Draw something with a rather unlikely looking feature— a graph that strikes the reader as quite definitely not just random noise. See if you get anything interesting in return. If yes, conjure up a backstory, and write up a post in a confident, assertive tone, that closes with the graph as your "care to explain this?!" evidence nailing home your suspicion.
[+] benologist|12 years ago|reply
That's far too much effort when they can just monitor RSS feeds and reword someone else's work.
[+] CompelTechnic|12 years ago|reply
confirmation bias in its most unadulterated form. excellent.
[+] scribu|12 years ago|reply
Seems like the typical "pre-Plus" Google project: limited usefulness, but interesting from an engineering standpoint.

Noticed that it still contains share buttons for two defunct Google services: Google Buzz and Google Reader

[+] iskander|12 years ago|reply
This was one of the many projects that got gutted by Plus, I'm surprised that it's still being hosted at all.
[+] mjschultz|12 years ago|reply
It's also using dygraphs javascript visualizations for the timeseries instead of Google Charts.
[+] hayksaakian|12 years ago|reply
Bad news for "linux"

http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id%3AWuHjnma...

Wow, I can share with Google buzz. /nostalgia

[+] simonh|12 years ago|reply
It's not necessarily as bad as it seems because this is relative to overall search term popularity. As more non-techies adopted the Internet, the prevalence of all techie topics declined, some more than others. E.g. Python is more popular as ever, but it's search term interest peaked in 2006, even though it's absolute search numbers increased nicely.

I don't think google do trend graphs for absolute search numbers, so one way to approximate that is to compare the graphs for competing terms using Google Trends (1). So to get a feel for how popular Python is, compare it's trend graph to say Java or Ruby.

Another factor I suspect may be relevant for Linux is that the rise of prominent distros has probably sapped away search term activity for general searches for Linux.

(1) http://www.google.co.uk/trends/explore

[+] jvm|12 years ago|reply
I wouldn't read too much into that trend, all desktop operating systems declined:

http://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=Mac+OS+X,+Linux,+Wind...

Ubuntu really does win though among the linuxes:

http://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=Ubuntu,OpenSuse,Debia...

My favorite linux is on the rise, albeit from a tiny baseline:

http://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=Archlinux&cmpt=q

At least the mobile OSes are doing well:

http://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=Mac+OS+X,+Linux,+Wind...

[+] devcpp|12 years ago|reply
I tried the same curve and got open source and free software. This is rather depressing but it's predictable.
[+] hornbaker|12 years ago|reply
My first try, with a hockey-stick growth pattern starting 2007. Expected a match with "twitter," instead got "baby poop."

http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id:iOj8ICadD...

[+] thetwiceler|12 years ago|reply
Anyone know why "bruising" and "brown spots" are common in the summer? Not as nice as the canonical answer of "ice cream"...

http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id:UfmYZwmin...

In case you're wondering what's popular in winter: it's lots of diseases!

[+] andymatuschak|12 years ago|reply
Stone fruit (peaches, plums, apricots, nectarines) are in season in the summer and easily bruise and get brown spots when they overripen.
[+] marc|12 years ago|reply
Just Google these words and add the word 'summer' to get some ideas. Here's what I came up with:

Bruising: More children play outside in the summer → more bruises → more parents/children(?) Googling for it. Brown spots: Might be referring to brown spots in someone's lawn due to the weather? Or summer freckles?

[+] solox3|12 years ago|reply
Very useful for looking up what people care about: http://i.imgur.com/puNZMco.png

1. (antidepressant drug) 2. "county jail" 3. "google" 4. "detention center" 5. (vinyl music database)

[+] nrj|12 years ago|reply
This would also be cool if instead of search terms you could see stock prices.
[+] malkia|12 years ago|reply
Make 100% on 2005, 2007, 2009, etc. and you'll have Cirque Du Soleil visits in San Francisco!