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Saturday, November 25, 2006

Some interesting trends!

While writing my last post, I realized I needed to share something which many of you may not have been aware of: Google Trends are fun and informative. It is wonderful to know, for example, that for all the charges of Fundamentalism and Religiosity dumped at the doorsteps of Islamic societies, the world's Top 10 Cities from where people search for God are whereas the world's Top 10 Regions looking for Sex are I suspect it means that the guys in the first instance have had enough of Sex and are looking for God ... and it's the opposite in the second case. But even more interesting is the Top 10 Languages used in searching for Sex Wonder what the Social Scientists and Psychologists make of all this!

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14 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's Buy Nothing Day ... so I ain't buyin' this!

25 November, 2006 08:42

 
Blogger sage said...

When ever I see something like this, my bs filters go on high and I wonder why you got those results. First of all, what is the % of population with internet access with the cities googling God? That alone could explain why Portland, Seattle and Minnepolis made the list (they're not really considered part of the Bible belt in the US). The one I found most questionable is the langauge googling sex as I'm sure there are more googling in English than most of those other languages--how many words does English have for sex as compared to the other languages?

Thanks for the below post about beta blogger, I'll continue to hold off going with the new although they're constantly trying to get me to convert.

25 November, 2006 17:49

 
Blogger Zakintosh said...

@Sage:
[1] Thanks for dropping by. The way cities are handled by Google may provide a clue.
[2] Although people outside Pakistan and India are reportng no problems, narrowing the glitch down to our 'blogger-ban bypass'methodology, I'd still suggest staying way from the shift until some of the other beta issues have been sorted out.

@others: If you blog from Pakistan, contact Faisal Khan (faisal@netxs.com.pk) for a solution he is offering. Although it involves money, it is a fairly affordable amount for some serious bloggers and has a lot of benefits,relieving one from tech hassles. No, he is not paying me a commission for promoting him (and I am pissed!)

25 November, 2006 18:51

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

hi
i dont understand the technical stuff but being settled in europe for the last couple of yrs i can somewhat agree wid the results.i think these westerns(my own term mayb:)r looking for something which they feel is absent around themselves,n same is the case wid ppl frm arab or other countries.man is curious by nature.

26 November, 2006 05:09

 
Blogger Sidhusaaheb said...

If the data for those searching for 'God' had also been in terms of countries, instead of cities, it might have been easier to compare and perhaps even correlate.

27 November, 2006 18:04

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I am sure it was a tongue-in-cheek post by zakintosh.Why is everyone taking all this so seriously? But if the shoe fits ... (which reminds me, I have lots of unused ones lying around).

27 November, 2006 21:52

 
Blogger Jawad Zakariya said...

Don't know if it was a tongue in cheek post, if it was...well sorry, but i'll say this anyway :-)

I think we can relegate this one to the 'Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics' department. Having a degree in statistics and having proved lots of bullshit by numbers as a marketeer over my career, I can say fairly certainly that these numbers seem to be a case of not revealing the whole story, as numbers without context tend to do. And anyway, the numbers for Pakistan should have come down after I left and they haven't, hence proved!

The third chart is obviously erroneous as pointed out by mansoor (I tried writing it the way he writes his name, but couldn't find all the keys, sorry). The second chart too seems out of sync, somehow, it cannot be based on pure numbers as then India would beat Pakistan hands down, the chart has to be a percentage. And then what is or isn't included amongst the search terms considered sex would be the question. Wouldn't the search term 'boy' be considered a 'sex' search in Peshawar! The point being there's lots of data missing in this kind of an evaluation and should be taken with a pinch of namak.

28 November, 2006 22:04

 
Blogger Zakintosh said...

shhhh, jawad. the hasba bill brigade keeps a tab on people who comment here. and many among them are pesha-wars ...

28 November, 2006 22:48

 
Blogger True Life said...

You should have given the search query 'Allah' a try instead of God.

02 December, 2006 01:29

 
Blogger Zakintosh said...

@true life: With the FBI, CIA, & half the ISI trolling the internet, loking for people interested in Allah, it seems dangerous. They may have thought I was searching for 'recruits' - such is the paranoia they & I live with. And I am a firm believer in the statement that just because I'm paranoid, it doesn't mean they're not out to get me.

Also, who knows what Google will do with my searching habits data? Yahoo wouldn't even allow Mrs. Callahan to get an email address because the surname 'contained' that scary word. [The policy has changed since.]

02 December, 2006 08:34

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I just wonder if Pakistan is at the top, why English is so low in the list. After all three of the top four don't speak Arabic for sure.

Regards.

05 December, 2006 14:36

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

cmon u r giving reference of google.
who runs google btw ??

think abt it

11 March, 2007 18:28

 
Blogger Zakintosh said...

hi guys ... ever heard of tongue-in-cheek?

13 March, 2007 17:26

 
Anonymous gutscheine zum ausdrucken said...

sehr guter Kommentar

26 March, 2013 20:02

 

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