Think everyone’s in a foul mood?
Check Google Zeitgeist it could be true.
The word Zeitgeist refers to the intellectual, cultural and moral climate of an era. It’s the taste, the outlook, the spirit of the times, so to speak. I think you can have a personal Zeitgeist as well. My own has been suffering from karma-skew all through 2005. I hope to master it in 2006, and I’m looking for every tool to do so. I think Google Zeitgeist might do the trick.
Every month Google interprets the latest search data it has collected for trends, bits of information, and patterns in user searches to make a statistical snapshot in the form of a report called Zeitgeist Watch. You can find it on the Google Blog. The information gathered by Google Zeitgeist isn’t particularly new, but where they take it is. The way they’ve thought-through Zeitgeist makes it a pleasure to behold and a joy to use. Despite my wariness of big conglomerates getting bigger, I just can’t turn up my nose at this one. It’s too much fun for a strategy fanatic like me.
Basically Google Zeitgeist lets you into the minds of Google searchers–our readers. Others attempt to do that, but Google performs it in a visually-friendly, intuitive fashion. They didn’t get to be Google, after all, by making things harder, now did they? Rather than just stopping with an alphabetical list of tags, they’ve analyzed the list into patterns of like-minded choices. This makes the bigger picture stand out.
As shown above, the Zeitgeist categories for October 2005 include
- Look It Up
- Popular Brick and Mortar Companies
- Popular Solo Singers
- What Else to Do On Line
The popular search term categories for October 2005 include
- Top Worries
- Popular Sports
- Popular Newsmakers
- Tabloid Fodder
The popular Image search categoriess for October 2005 include
- Popular Cars
- Popular Wizards and Superheroes
- Popular Bands
- Tabloid Concepts
Just by checking those three lists, we have a sense of what our readers might be thinking, and what topics might be hot. Look a little further, and find that Zeitgeist covers no less than 23 other countries beyond the US. As a person who is curious and fascinated by human behavior, this is like a major Christmas toy. It’s been out for a while now. So if you’ve not played with it yet, it’s time you give Zeitgeist a try. I can see posts in the lists for almost any blog.
But first I’m going to use Google Zeitgeist to invent a Television Game Show. It will have a 20-second song for the final round question like the one that Merv Griffin did for Jeopardy. That’s how I’m going to make millions.
Heck I bet after that the famousblog read by royalty, tycoons, and the rich and famous–Blogebrity–will move me from the C List up to the prestigious A List. Then it will be Veuvre Champagne for everyone in the Signature Room at the top of the John Hancock in Chicago. I’ll be buying and flying you all in. Which might be too nice and thereby force Blogebrity to push me back to the C List again. Oh well, I was only getting 15 minutes of fame to start with.
It’s the money I need desperately. I’ve got a kid in college you know. So the millions will come in handy. My son will use them to graduate from Georgetown. One day he will be a famous CEO of a mega corporation and maybe take of his mom in her doting old age and deterioration.
Thanks for these things will be due to Google and their Zeitgeist Watch lists–the little analysis program that made all of my dreams come true. 🙂
–ME “Liz” Strauss
