Data Mining With Google Insights For Search

<div><p>I recently read a NYT article that highlighted how Google search data is being used to predict flu outbreaks at a regional level and in some cases a week to 10 days before they're reported by the CDC. It turns out that a good portion, if not all, of Google's search data is available for anybody to query using <a href="http://www.google.com/insights/search/" target="_blank">Google Insights for Search BETA</a>. You can search on multiple terms and filter by time, geographic region, and category.</p> <p>For example, look at the worldwide results for <a href="http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=cloud%20computing&cmpt=q" target="_blank">cloud computing</a>. Interest has steadily gained in the last 18 months(follow the link and you'll see that surprisingly the peak interest comes from India - the US ranks 6th on the list):</p> <p><img alt="Cloud Computing" border="0" height="156" src="../../_nNmzpgOs8Bg/Sce6Irgi0gI/AAAAAAAAArE/z6u4KEfg5-I/image[37]_imgmax-800.png" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: none; margin-left: auto; display: block; border-top-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" title="Cloud Computing" width="644"></p> <p>What about social networking sites? Here's the almost exponential rise in popularity of <a href="http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=twitter&cmpt=q" target="_blank">Twitter</a> in the last few months:</p> <p><img alt="Twitter" border="0" height="156" src="../../_nNmzpgOs8Bg/Sce6JBfi_mI/AAAAAAAAArI/xVkyBqhjDQE/image[44]_imgmax-800.png" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: none; margin-left: auto; display: block; border-top-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" title="Twitter" width="644"> </p> <p>Putting it into perspective, look at how Twitter compares to more established sites like MySpace and Facebook:</p> <p><img alt="Facebook vs. MySpace vs. Twitter" border="0" height="156" src="../../_nNmzpgOs8Bg/Sce6JhtMN9I/AAAAAAAAArM/oI6scj6Pl8s/image[31]_imgmax-800.png" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: none; margin-left: auto; display: block; border-top-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" title="Facebook vs. MySpace vs. Twitter" width="644"> </p> <p>In the graph above MySpace is the red line, Facebook is the yellow line, and Twitter is the little tiny blue bump in the lower right corner. Three things stand out: MySpace's popularity has peeked and it's on a slow decline, Facebook is red hot, and Twitter has a long way to go before it's as popular as the others.</p> <p>Given that Google is the de facto search engine for most people it's easy to see how useful - and powerful - this tool can be.</p></div>