Google Trends = Vox Populi
Hat tip to Duc for mentioning this.
Google Trends compares search term popularity. It can be used as a predictor of people’s behavior. Here’s the original chart that interested me:

And here’s a few others I checked out, all over the last 12 months.
Obama, Clinton, McCain:
McCain is gaining interest, while Clinton is losing it

Inflation, Recession:
most searches for “inflation” are made from Asian countries

Stock market, Recession:
this year the correlation is nearly perfect

Oil, Gold, Silver:
oil is leading, silver slightly lagging; GOLD is most searched from Australia

Dollar, Euro

“Real estate” and “corn” separately (period: all years).
Perfect waves, clearly discernible cycles!


This is like looking at stock charts, fun 🙂

Kat,
Excellent stuff.
Google has come up with some really powerful statistics based on their data gathering. There will obviously be ways to use this, which is what I’m currently having a think about.
jog on
duc
Wow. I hope Google never tracks my searches on ‘apparel’ and ‘latex.’