Google knows the public mind
By Carolyn Y. Johnson, Globe Staff | December 13, 2007
Looking for insight into the collective soul? Google today releases 2007 Year-End Zeitgeist, an annual X-ray of the hottest searches.
Zeitgeist gives a glimpse of Google's role as multipurpose oracle, with people turning to the search engine for information about diets, recipes, the Nintendo Wii, and the travails of Britney Spears. People even trusted Google to guide their romances, with searches for "how to kiss" and "what is love" atop the open-ended question category.
There's a season for every search. Top winter queries included Anna Nicole Smith and the IRS; spring saw Virginia Tech, Don Imus, and the iPhone in the spotlight. Radiohead, the Red Sox, and Pavarotti spiked this fall.
Then, there's the evanescence of what's hot - the fastest-falling search terms included Shakira and Sudoku.
Compete, a Boston company that tracks Web traffic, said US Web users set a record with over 8.1 billion searches on the top engines in November. Google had a nearly 70 percent share.
Gazing into Google's lens offers hints about what's on the public mind: The number one search beginning with "Who is" asked "who is god," while "who is satan" came in at number 10. In-between was "who is buckethead," a guitarist who played with Guns N' Roses and who has a song featured in the video game Guitar Hero II.
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