Google trends

July 4 2006

Sorry for a bit of radio silence...four-day weekend for some of us state-side as we celebrate, in my daughter's words, "it's America's birthday ... we get to eat cupcakes!"

Anyway, one of the geek things I've gotten around to this weekend is looking at Google Trends.  Several of you have sent links along for me to take a look at this emerging Google feature.  It's pretty cool.  I am just amazed at the computing power that must be behind it -- that in about one second, it can graph years of search data, correlate with news reports, and even do multiple comparative operations simultaneously.  This is the kind of thing which, years ago, we would have asked someone to "run a report".

So here's the Google trend for Lotus Notes:

Image:Google trends
The letters correspond to specific news events..."D", for example, is the announcement of the availability of Notes/Domino 7.  You can also see peaks in the news volume in early 05 and '06, likely correlating to Lotusphere.

The overall trend line is downward, but that doesn't worry me much -- the same is true for the competition.  Speaking of competition, several readers noted the comparative trends for Lotus Notes vs. Microsoft Outlook -- Almost identical (blue = Notes, red = Outlook):
Image:Google trends

The last interesting bit is where those Notes searches are coming from.  The normalized data, meaning that the proportion of all searches from these cities is factored in, puts several Asian cities at the top of the list:
Image:Google trends

You can also break this down by region, and learn that, for example, Notes queries outnumber Outlook ones in Columbus, Milwaukee, and Washington DC.

In the end, I'm not sure what the data tells us.  Numbers can often tell whatever story you wish, right?

Ed Brill Highland Park, IL USA Category:  In the news  Add/View Comments [11]

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  1. 1  Subhan  | 7/4/2006 11:02:32 PM

    Though this comparision { Link } looks disturbing.

  1. 2  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 7/4/2006 11:08:20 PM

    not when you compare to <i>microsoft sharepoint</i>. So the system is easily manipulated... :)

  1. 3  Dave Harris http://www.wavysworld.com | 7/5/2006 12:12:28 AM

    Intteresting that, on the comparative graph, Notes searches drop just before year end, while Outlook peaks just after. I guess people searching for business reasons stop just before christmas/new year, while home users with their brand new christmas present pc seaarch for help trying to use it just after.

  1. 4  Michael  | 7/5/2006 2:21:54 AM

    to complete @3 : I suspect that most searches for "outlook" may come from "home" computing people trying to send email or something ;)

    @2 : well, you don't need to find help for a stuff that just runs ok ;)

    So I don't think we can get any real value out of this data cause we can analyze them on 2 opposite ways depending of what we want to see.

  1. 5  Nick Halliwell www.comware.net | 7/5/2006 4:00:43 AM

    Ed, You may recall me telling you some 18 months ago that Notes was going to be big business in Asia, due to its low cost and its ability to do work flow and work well over poor internet connections.

    It is the ideal tool for Asian companies that do not have the deep pockets and massive IT budgets that companies have in North America and Europe. I remember looking at exactly the same set of stats 6 months ago, and it has not change much at all in that time.

    I hope IBM take not of this stuff!!!

  1. 6  Charles Robinson  | 7/5/2006 9:23:29 AM

    @5 - Not all North American companies have deep pockets or massive IT budgets. We support over 200 users with just two IT support staff, and I am certain that would not be possible with any other enterprise messaging product. They get to spend their time dealing with Windows issues and the Domino servers just hum along.

    Based on these numbers I need to brush up on my Mandarin and learn Tamil and Hindi. :-)

  1. 7  david racicot  | 7/5/2006 11:39:19 AM

    @6. re: languages ...ditto! :-).

  1. 8  Richard  | 7/5/2006 6:35:29 PM

    I would have thought the peaks for cities in India correlate with the large outsourcing and helpdesk centres located there.

  1. 9  Henny Breijer  | 7/6/2006 3:29:54 AM

    @8 - Just what I was thinking. Didn't IBM recently announce a multi-billion investment initative in India ?

    It's pretty interesting that the Asian Countries, sort of known for their slik design of electronics - don't care so much about a sexy interface when it comes down to an application :D

  1. 10  Mike  | 7/8/2006 5:33:30 PM

    A better comparison,

    { Link }

    So the system is easily manipulated... :)

  1. 11  Mike  | 7/8/2006 5:35:26 PM

    without the misleading "outlook"...

    { Link }