Google is taking snapshots of its users' minds and aggregating them. Like a flipbook that emerges when successive images are strung together, the logged data tell a story.
So what is the world thinking about?
Sex, for one thing.
"You can learn to say 'sex' in a lot of different languages by looking at the logs," said Craig Silverstein, director of technology at Google. (To keep Live Query G-rated, Google filters out sex-related searches, though less successfully with foreign languages.)
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The logs team came to work one morning to find that "carol brady maiden name" had surged to the top of the charts.
That night the million-dollar question on the game show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" had been, "What was Carol Brady's maiden name?" Seconds after the show's host, Regis Philbin, posed the question, thousands flocked to Google to search for the answer (Tyler), producing four spikes as the show was broadcast successively in each time zone.
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Pinned up next to the GeoDisplay are two charts depicting Google usage in the United States throughout the day. For searches as a whole, there is a single peak at 5 p.m. For sex-related searches, there is a second peak at 11 p.m.
Each country has a distinctive usage pattern. Spain, France and Italy have a midday lull in Google searches, presumably reflecting leisurely lunches and relaxation. In Japan, the peak usage is after midnight - an indication that phone rates for dial-up modems drop at that time.
Happy Hanukkah!!!!
Niek stumbled across the American slang "beached."