Mood Machine: How Google Reveals Our Hopes and Fears
Google Zeitgeist charts for term “layaway” (top) and green-technology terms (bottom)
Tech Crunch recently reviewed the top searches on Google Zetigeist, an examination of popular keyword searches on the Internet search giant. The resulting post is astounding.
They also showed a few trends that appear to mirror the collective emotions behind keyword searches.
For example, the term, “Layaway” shows a profound jump in searches as the economy tanks and the Dow begins a precipitous drop. Layway is a term that would most likely appear because people are fearful of the economy and a fear that their access to credit would be stymied. The term was rarely searched during 2007. It skyrocketed in late 2008.
In another chart, as gas prices rise, so do searches for terms like “hybrid car” and “solar panel”; interestingly, the searches drop as prices fall. In fact, the descent seems to be in lock-step with the price of oil and the lower costs of gas at the pump.
Obviously, as Tech Crunch points out, this is beyond coincidence. This is a visualization of the spirit of its times. There’s another angle that’s a little more akin to how machines are slowly integrating into our life. Google’s Zeitgeist is more than another tool to understand the collective emotions; it’s the subtle interaction between collective human desire and machines.
We can only speculate what’s next.
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- Will Buzz be the Google of Collective Intelligence?
- Can Google Trends Predict the Price of Silver?
- Chicken Step 2: Make A Lean, Online Money Making Machine
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is one of my favorite financial books of all time. It's an allegory about a guy who has a terrible job, and how he overcomes challenges to achieve his dreams.
Wow. That’s really fascinating!