Faster than a speeding bullet, more trendy than a SoHo hipster; the power of search data
Are you a spotter of trends? Do you revel in knowing things before your friends and colleagues? If so I am going to share a little information that will make you a very happy person.
A couple of months ago I came across one of the coolest RSS feeds that I've ever seen. Google Hot Trends now offers an hourly feed that shows the top 100 search terms. Every hour a new item is sent to my RSS reader for my consumption.
Why is this cool you ask? Imagine the power of the collective, "crowd sourced" data of millions of Google searches aggregated into one place. It's pop culture at its best. Want to get the scoop before mainstream media? Subscribe to this feed.
The type of information is unfiltered so you will get things like:
- Scoops on sports trades
- Celebrity news
- Breaking business and economic news
- World news
- Scandals of all sorts
- See how powerful TV is at driving search
To me, Google Hot Trends represents the real power of collective intelligence. In the case of Google Trends this is information aggregated across the globe, but imagine if you could do this only for technology or social media. The trends that you uncover would be catalysts for innovation and change.
What are you doing with your search data?
If you are running a web site, what are you doing with your search data? Are you storing it? If you're storing it, are you looking at it? If you're looking at it, are you analyzing it for trends and insights?
Search is as key to a site as your navigation. The data is extremely powerful and can tell you what your customers are looking for, what they really want and what you need to create more of.
How are you using your search data?
Technorati Tags:
50Matches, Google, marketing, Matt Dickman, Search, Techno//Marketer, trends, data
Normally I stalk Google Labs to be on top of the next great thing but the last few weeks, I've been slacking a bit in my obsessiveness!
Thanks for pointing this out, it is really awesome...zeitgeist in near real time!
Posted by: Andrew C. | Thursday, February 21, 2008 at 09:40 PM
Andrew -- No problem. This is totally addictive I must add.
Posted by: Matt Dickman | Thursday, February 21, 2008 at 10:18 PM
We are planning to offer custom content through search. I am with you 100% or more, search data is valuable feedback!
Posted by: Valeria Maltoni | Thursday, February 21, 2008 at 10:28 PM
Valeria -- That's excellent. It is really too often overlooked. It's a goldmine of content.
Posted by: Matt Dickman | Thursday, February 21, 2008 at 10:49 PM
very neat info - never knew there was a top 100 for this.
the engineers are google certainly let us have access to all sorts of good stuff ...now think about what they *dont* give us access to =)
Posted by: Adam Singer | Friday, February 22, 2008 at 12:00 PM
Very cool Matt. I am definitely going to subscribe and see what I learn from it. Especially now that the NBA trade deadline is looming :)
Posted by: Toad | Friday, February 22, 2008 at 03:15 PM
Adam -- It certainly makes you wonder what they can do with all of the data.
TT -- It's a good way to stay on top of trades!
Posted by: Matt Dickman | Monday, February 25, 2008 at 01:17 AM
Interesting to see how closely search is tied to stories/news/content featured on each engines home page.
Seems like folks read what's provided and then dig deeper on their own.
So I ask this question...can Google/Yahoo!/MSN dictate what is being search for????
Posted by: Ken Barhoover | Tuesday, February 26, 2008 at 11:40 AM