If you're ever short of a subject to talk about at the water cooler and seeking ideas, one place to look is online to see what people are interested in today. Your first stop might be Yahoo! Buzz, which updates hourly so you can stay pretty up to the minute. This morning, the top ten searches were: American Idol
Julie Chen
Susan Boyle
Iran
China
Gliese 581 D
Dancing With The Stars
Sri Lanka
Earth Day
Arsenal
One can immediately see a pattern here. Despite protestations that the Internet's a universe of its own, independent of the outside culture, quick analysis shows that pop media drives much that occurs online. American Idol and Dancing with the Stars are, of course, TV shows. Susan Boyle is from a British TV show Who's Got Talent. Julie Chen is a TV personality. (They're buzzing because, like whoa, wow... she's pregnant.) Earth Day made the list today because, in case you didn't know, today is Earth Day.
The big news in astronomy is Gliese 581 D, a planet slightly larger than earth which might be capable of sustaining life if it weren't so near to the sun of its own solar system. The planet was discovered in 2007 but Earth Day seemed like a good day to break the news about another earthlike planet.
The arsenal search listed here is actually a reference to Arsenal, a soccer team which just had a major match against Liverpool, a sports driven story.
Google has its own version of the Buzz called Hot Trends. Likewise updated every hour, these were the top ten hot trends as of 27 minutes ago:
1.
bacon bra
2.
katmai sinking
3.
earth day facts
4.
hashima island
5.
ignoramus
6.
meteor shower
7.
if i can t have you
8.
the phone
9.
google profile
10.
bobby jones
Clearly we have a different breed of user over at Google, though I couldn't explain why that is. The Google list is one hundred items long and for the life of me why people are searching for some of these terms I haven't a clue. mutombo is #22. coroflot is #49. And 1863 is #58. Why not 1861 or 1897?
Say, I have an idea. Why don't we all search for Ennyman today? Then everyone else will wonder, "What's that all about? Who's Ennyman?"
The big news in astronomy is Gliese 581 D, a planet slightly larger than earth which might be capable of sustaining life if it weren't so near to the sun of its own solar system. The planet was discovered in 2007 but Earth Day seemed like a good day to break the news about another earthlike planet.
The arsenal search listed here is actually a reference to Arsenal, a soccer team which just had a major match against Liverpool, a sports driven story.
Google has its own version of the Buzz called Hot Trends. Likewise updated every hour, these were the top ten hot trends as of 27 minutes ago:
1.
bacon bra
2.
katmai sinking
3.
earth day facts
4.
hashima island
5.
ignoramus
6.
meteor shower
7.
if i can t have you
8.
the phone
9.
google profile
10.
bobby jones
Clearly we have a different breed of user over at Google, though I couldn't explain why that is. The Google list is one hundred items long and for the life of me why people are searching for some of these terms I haven't a clue. mutombo is #22. coroflot is #49. And 1863 is #58. Why not 1861 or 1897?Say, I have an idea. Why don't we all search for Ennyman today? Then everyone else will wonder, "What's that all about? Who's Ennyman?"
Or, we can all go on our way and note what everyone else is buzzing about today. Happy Earth Day, everyone.
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