Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Trends and Google

Lists of what is most popular, and the most popular searches conducted aren't anything new. However, Google has expanded on people's interests in trends and created Google Trends. This search feature allows users to search anything their heart desires, and receive a chart which highlights current and past trends on the topic.

This feature is also closely related to Google's move to make searching public data such as population more accessible. Currently, if you go to Google.com and type in [unemployment rate] or [population] followed by a place in the U.S, you will see the most recent estimates and an interactive chart. The information used for these charts and is from the U.S Census Bureau's Population Division. Most importantly this is a huge step towards making census information far more searchable and accessible to the general public. This newly organized data has the potential to be a valuable to historians attempting to gauge population changes, the movement of people, employment, and numerous other facets of history.

No comments: