Google Trends First Look

Google is announcing a bunch of new products today as part of their media day. Philipp Lenssen has all the details. The first is outstanding. It's called Google Trends. Google Notebook is coming next week. My hope is that the latter product is built on Writely, which they acquired earlier this year.

Google Trends analyzes a portion of Google searches to compute how many searches have been done for certain terms relative to the sum total. It includes a news-volume graph too that shows you the number of times your topic appeared in Google News stories. Unfortunately, unlike Google Finance it does not include blogs. This is a lost opportunity given Google's interest in furthering peer-to-peer media. You can compare up to five terms by separating each term with a comma.

This tool is a must-bookmark for every PR person and marketer worldwide. Search is so important to how brands are perceived. As I noted earlier today, it's critical to understand how people are searching for you and your competitors. The news volume tool is an awesome value add for PR measurement. But there's more.

Google Trends is also a killer tool for measuring the impact that bloggers have on a brand. Take a look for example at the graph below. It charts Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer against it's most well-known corporate blogger, Robert Scoble. Note how close the lines touch. Anything that gives us more data to justify why companies should be part of the conversation is a winner in my book and Google hit it out of the part with this one. The one catch is that there needs to be ample data in Google's database, so not all terms deliver results.

Technorati Tags: Analytics, Data, Google, Google Trends, Reputation

Comments

[James Byers]

I'll bet you one cold beer next time you're in San Francisco that Google Notebook isn't based on Writely. It would be nice, but I don't think they've gotten there yet. :)

[Tom O'Brien]

I think you met they hit it out of the park. :) Great review..I find you blog very informative.

[Jeroen de Koning]

Thanks for this review. Although there needs to be ample data in Google's database, I can get good results for my search queries in Dutch. I didn't expected that!

[Sney]

It reminds me of http://www.trendio.com a stock exchange on headline news where people can see trends in media and buy buzzwords.