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Visualizing Searches Over Time
Posted by
CowboyNeal
on Fri Mar 02, 2007 07:01 AM
from the half-past-chat dept.
from the half-past-chat dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Chris Harrison has built a visualization that explores what people are doing online over time. He explains, 'Search engines are the gateway to the internet for most people, and so search queries provide insight into what people are doing and thinking. In order to examine millions of search queries, I built a simple, cyclical, clock-like visualization that displays the top search terms over a 24-hour period.' Interesting to see that the masses online have fairly coherent and consistent search behaviors. He also investigates the notorious AOL dataset."
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Locale? (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://netapps.com.au/)
TFA talks about the time of day that certain terms were searched for but doesn't say what timezone he is assuming the searchers are in. Most people assume you are talking about the USA these days, but even that covers four hours. But what about Europe? Even back in 1997 they must have accounted for a fair chunk of searches.
Re:Locale? (Score:4, Interesting)
What I find amusing is the fact that one of the most popular search terms in the AOL data set was "myspace," which he attributes to AOL targeting home users who desire to use the internet for social activities. To me, this indicates that people who use AOL to search do not know the difference between a search box and a URL bar.
Re:Locale? (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://netapps.com.au/)
I have set up systems for people who are very non-technical and they are exactly like that. They want one way to find stuff and having an alternate confuses them terribly. So I set their home page to google and tell them to search for what they want.
And yes, if I had read down a bit further I would have seen him discuss timezones. The web started at CERN, of course.
Re:Locale? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Locale? (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah, I'm searching for "more insulting understatements from isolated Americans", right now.
Interesting. (Score:3, Funny)
(http://www.nojailforpot.com/)
Google, check this! (Score:2)
(http://www.vhemt.org/)
My new hobby... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:My new hobby... (Score:5, Interesting)
Well then, I challenge you to explain this: http://www.google.com/trends?q=salmon+rice&ctab=2
the small image looks... (Score:1)
(http://www.bestofpps.com/)
AOL set? (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://libtom.org/)
Tom
Filter out "MySpace" (Score:1)
Ran tool for searches by /.ers (Score:1, Funny)
(Last Journal: Monday October 15, @07:06PM)
24HR Results Top 3 searches:
1. Pr0n
2. Porn
3. Beowulf Clusters of Porn
1 Week Top 3 searches:
1. Porn
2. P0rn
3.Soviet Russian Porn
1 Month Top 3 searches:
1. Pornography
2. Goatse
3. BDSM overlord porn
Kinda makes you think....
Information about.... (Score:4, Insightful)
It seems to me to be a somewhat naive way of searching given that many sites don't necessarily spell out that they are giving information about a given subject. It is an oblique reminder of how many people might view the Internet as a formal collection of officially produced, authoritative "Information" instead of the jumble of stuff that it is. Perhaps search engine logic commonly treats the string word "information about" in a special way given people's apparent proclivity to do this.
Regardless, I would drop those words from the data as they don't really help in showing what people are searching for. It's similar to including the word "and"; it conveys little about what people are searching for and more about *how* they are searching.
Other interesting trends (Score:1)
So, in the midnight hour (2400 hrs) (Score:1)
they cried, "porn, porn, porn!"
So that's what the Billy Idol song was trying to say. Damn Brits and their silly abuse of our English language.
Most of you read the chart wrong.... (Score:2)
Civic terms popular (Score:1)
I find it interesting that "county" appears so often in AOL searches, it seems like an odd civic term to be popular. Though, when looking at the Google trends [google.com] for "county, city, town, state, gov", county is right up there with state in the US, but below city. Why would AOL users be more concerned with county rather than city?