I have a coworker who is obsessed with Ron Paul. He insists on sending out multiple emails per week about him and trying to get the word out about his favorite candidate. I have no problem with him being active and trying to get new people interested in Ron Paul, in fact I find some of the information he sends out quite informative and I think Ron Paul has some progressive and fresh viewpoints compared to all of the other GOP candidates. Some people that I work with don’t appreciate his consistent urging, but its no bother to me.
I was browsing an article today on Lifehacker touting the coolness of some of the lesser known Google web applications. One of them is Google Trends, which will give you a nice little graphic comparing the search volume and news references of a website over time. It attempts to give you what I would call a “Web Popularity” ranking I guess. Not really sure how accurate it is, or what it really means, but the results were exactly in line with what my coworker has been preaching: Ron Paul is popular, especially online, yet he isn’t getting any media coverage.
There’s a whole lot going on in this graph and I’m not really sure exactly what all of it may imply. One thing that is clear is that Ron Paul’s popularity on the web has skyrocketed since May 2007 yet he still isn’t getting nearly as much attention from media sources as the other candidates. I’m sure plenty of political folks could find plenty of ways to spin this graphic to benefit themselves, but I thought it was an interesting visualization of the point my coworker has been trying to make. I showed it to him and he wasn’t surprised by what it was showing, but he was quite excited about Google Trends and the information that it made available.
Well done Google, I like the data that Google Trends shows. I hope it gets polished and officially released some day. Be sure to checkout the actual Google Trends page for breakdowns based on region, city and location.
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