From: Grant Callaghan (grantc4@hotmail.com)
Date: Thu 28 Nov 2002 - 18:43:44 GMT
My God! What a tool for tracking the spread of memes through the global
culture!
Grant
>Postcards From Planet Google
>
>By JENNIFER 8. LEE
>
>http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/28/technology/circuits/28goog.html?pagewanted=
>print&position=top
>
>MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.
>
>AT Google's squat headquarters off Route 101, visitors sit in the lobby,
>transfixed by the words scrolling by on the wall behind the receptionist's
>desk: - animación japonese Harry Potter pensées et poèmes associação
>brasileira de normas técnicas -
>
>The projected display, called Live Query, shows updated samples of what
>people around the world are typing into Google's search engine. The terms
>scroll by in English, Chinese, Spanish, Swedish, Japanese, Korean, French,
>Dutch, Italian - any of the 86 languages that Google tracks.
>
>- people who shouldn't marry /"she smoked a cigar"/ mr. potatoheads in long
>island /pickup lines to get women /auto theft fraud how to -
>
>Stare at Live Query long enough, and you feel that you are watching the
>collective consciousness of the world stream by.
>
>Each line represents a thought from someone, somewhere with an Internet
>connection. Google collects these queries - 150 million a day from more
>than 100 countries - in its databases, updating and storing the computer
>logs millisecond by millisecond.
>
>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.)
>
>Despite its geographic and ethnic diversity, the world is spending much of
>its time thinking about the same things. Country to country, region to
>region, day to day and even minute to minute, the same topic areas bubble
>to the top: celebrities, current events, products and computer downloads.
>
>"It's amazing how similar people are all over the world based on what they
>are searching for," said Greg Rae, one of three members of Google's logs
>team, which is responsible for building, storing and protecting the data
>record.
>
>Google's following - it is the most widely used search engine -- has given
>Mr. Rae a worldview from his cubicle. Since October 2001, he has been able
>to reel off "anthrax" in several languages: milzbrand (German), carbonchio
>(Italian), miltvuur (Dutch), antrax (Spanish). He says he can also tell
>which countries took their recent elections seriously (Brazil and Germany),
>because of the frenzy of searches. He notes that the globalization of
>consumer culture means that the most popular brands are far-flung in
>origin: Nokia, Sony, BMW, Ferrari, Ikea and Microsoft.
>
>Judging from Google's data, some sports events stir interest almost
>everywhere: the Tour de France, Wimbledon, the Melbourne Cup horse race and
>the World Series were all among the top 10 sports-related searches last
>year. It also becomes obvious just how familiar American movies, music and
>celebrities are to searchers across the globe. Two years ago, a Google
>engineer named Lucas Pereira noticed that searches for Britney Spears had
>declined, indicating what he thought must be a decline in her popularity.
>From that observation grew Google Zeitgeist, a listing of the top gaining
>and declining queries of each week and month.
>
>Glancing over Google Zeitgeist is like taking a trivia test in cultural
>literacy: Ulrika Jonsson (a Swedish-born British television host), made the
>list recently, as did Irish Travelers (a nomadic ethnic group, one of whose
>members was videotaped beating her young daughter in Indiana) and fentanyl
>(the narcotic gas used in the Moscow raid to rescue hostages taken by
>Chechen rebels in late October).
>
>The long-lasting volume of searches involving her name has made Ms. Spears
>something of a benchmark for the logs team. It has helped them understand
>how news can cause spikes in searches, as it did when she broke up with
>Justin Timberlake.
>
>Google can feel the reverberations of such events, and others of a more
>serious nature, immediately.
>
>On Feb. 28, 2001, for example, an earthquake began near Seattle at 10:54
>a.m. local time. Within two minutes, earthquake-related searches jumped to
>250 a minute from almost none, with a concentration in the Pacific
>Northwest. On Sept. 11, searches for the World Trade Center, Pentagon and
>CNN shot up immediately after the attacks. Over the next few days,
>Nostradamus became the top search query, fueled by a rumor that Nostradamus
>had predicted the trade center's destruction.
>
>But the most trivial events may also register on Google's sensitive
>cultural seismic meter.
>
>The logs team came to work one morning to find that "carol brady maiden
>name" had surged to the top of the charts.
>
>Curious, they mapped the searches by time of day and found that they were
>neatly grouped in five spikes: biggest, small, small, big and finally,
>after a long wait, another small blip. Each spike started at 48 minutes
>after the hour.
>
>As the logs were passed through the office, employees were perplexed. Why
>would there be a surge in interest in a character from the 1970's sitcom
>"The Brady Bunch"? But the data could only reflect patterns, not explain
>them.
>
>That is a paradox of a Google log: it does not capture social phenomena per
>se, but merely the shadows they cast across the Internet.
>
>"The most interesting part is why," said Amit Patel, who has been a member
>of the logs team. "You can't interpret it unless you know what else is
>going on in the world."
>
>So what had gone on on April 22, 2001?
>
>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.
>
>And that last little blip?
>
>"Hawaii," Mr. Patel said.
>
>The precision of the Carol Brady data was eye-opening for some.
>
>"It was like trying an electron microscope for the first time," said Sergey
>Brin, who as a graduate student in computer science at Stanford helped
>found Google in 1998 and is now its president for technology. "It was like
>a moment-by-moment barometer."
>
>Predictably, Google's query data respond to television, movies and radio.
>But the mass media also feed off the demands of their audiences. One of
>Google's strengths is its predictive power, flagging trends before they hit
>the radar of other media.
>
>As such it could be of tremendous value to entertainment companies or
>retailers. Google is quiet about what if any plans it has for
>commercializing its vast store of query information. "There is tremendous
>opportunity with this data," Mr. Silverstein said. "The challenge is
>defining what we want to do."
>
>The search engine Lycos, which produces a top 50 list of its most popular
>searches, is already exploring potential commercial opportunities. "There
>is a lot of interest from marketing people," said Aaron Schatz, who writes
>a daily column on trends for Lycos. "They want to see if their product is
>appearing. What is the next big thing?"
>
>Google currently does not allow outsiders to gain access to raw data
>because of privacy concerns. Searches are logged by time of day,
>originating I.P. address (information that can be used to link searches to
>a specific computer), and the sites on which the user clicked. People tell
>things to search engines that they would never talk about publicly -
>Viagra, pregnancy scares, fraud, face lifts. What is interesting in the
>aggregate can be seem an invasiion of privacy if narrowed to an individual.
>
>So, does Google ever get subpoenas for its information?
>
>"Google does not comment on the details of legal matters involving Google,"
>Mr. Brin responded.
>
>In aggregate form, Google's data can make a stunning presentation. Next to
>Mr. Rae's cubicle is the GeoDisplay, a 40-inch screen that gives a
>three-dimensional geographical representation of where Google is being used
>around the globe. The searches are represented by colored dots shooting
>into the atmosphere. The colors - red, yellow, orange - convey the
>impression of a globe whose major cities are on fire. The tallest flames
>are in New York, Tokyo and the San Francisco Bay Area.
>
>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.
>
>Google's worldwide scope means that the company can track ideas and
>phenomena as they hop from country to country.
>
>Take Las Ketchup, a trio of singing sisters who became a sensation in Spain
>last spring with a gibberish song and accompanying knee-knocking dance
>similar to the Macarena.
>
>Like a series of waves, Google searches for Las Ketchup undulated through
>Europe over the summer and fall, first peaking in Spain, then Italy, then
>Germany and France.
>
>"The Ketchup Song (Hey Hah)" has already topped the charts in 18 countries.
>A ring tone is available for mobile phones. A parody of the song that mocks
>Chancellor Gerhard Schröder for raising taxes has raced to the top of the
>charts in Germany.
>
>In late summer, Google's logs show, Las Ketchup searches began a strong
>upward climb in the United States, Britain and the Netherlands.
>
>Haven't heard of Las Ketchup?
>
>If you haven't, Google predicts you soon will.
>
>
>Copyright The New York Times Company
>
>
>===============================================================
>This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
>Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
>For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
>see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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