It’s that time when all the companies that collect your data start parceling it out to tell you what the year’s really been like – we’ve already had offerings from Facebook and Twitter. What makes Google’s version – Zeitgeist – a little different is that they offer pretty particular data about South African search trends.
And I mean credit to Google for the sort of data they’re putting out – they’ve got month-by-month lists for the fastest rising searches, fastest rising people, and the most frequently searched-for lyrics, among others.
The fastest-rising searches in the country are pretty indicative – there’s a smattering of stuff that has local priority, but we’re mostly seeing searches for international matters:
- Rugby World Cup
- Royal Wedding
- Amy Winehouse
- Adele
- Gaddafi
- Iphone 5
- Velvet Sky
- Steve Jobs
Where we see more local stuff coming up, though, is in the ‘What Is…?‘ listing, which tracks the most frequently occurring ‘what is [x]’ queries:
- What Is Facebook
- What Is Love
- What Is Life
- What Is Hiv
- What Is Research
- What Is Technology
- What Is Energy
- What Is Aids
- What Is Cancer
- What Is Ubuntu
I mean on the one hand it’s a little disconcerting that some of these things are things that people don’t know about, but on the other it’s sort of neat that Google offered a platform by which folk could find out.
It pleases me, by the way, to inform you that Rebecca Black didn’t make any of our lists at all.
Take a look at the rest of the data over at Google Zeitgeist.
[Source: Google Zeitgeist]
