We are Google: Google currently delivers 3,190,000 entries for 'Islam'; 832,000 entries for 'Judaism'. Which tells us what? More Jews than Muslims use the internet? Jews have a greater interest in comparative religion? 'Man' gets 69,400,000 entries; 'Woman', 22,400,000; 'Mars', 7,700,000; 'Venus', 2,390,000. So? We're living in a feminised world that's desperately searching for a better understanding of what men want? [Smackdown].
Imagine a world in which everybody had access to the internet. The ability to peer into the word rankings of particular communities would give an amazing, dynamic insight into collective thought processes. Reworked continuously, word rankings would mirror our minds, the minds of our neighbours, our enemies.
English and Brazilian word rankings are bound to be quite different from each other. Would subtle changes in Google word rankings precede sporting fixtures? elections? wars? earthquakes. . ?
The zeitgeist according to Google is currently biased towards the West and the US and towards English. But Google's ability for capturing the essence of what's going on can already be seen: the top word for September 2001 was 'Nostradamus'. [Google Zeitgeist].
Want to know if the Brazilians are shaking at the prospect of meeting England in the World Cup? Give it a couple of years. By 2006, the 10 O'Clock News will consist of nothing but analyses of the Google sporting zeitgeist by the BBC's chief Google editor and a professor in Google studies. [First Monday].
