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Shocking deaths top Google's trending searches in 2018
As is the annual tradition, Google has released its list of top trending searches for the year. If 2018 was dominated by anything, it was untimely and unexpected celebrity deaths. The top 10 trending searches included DJ and musician Avicii, rapper Mac Miller, legendary comics creator Stan Lee, celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain, controversial rapper XXXTentacion, theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, and fashion designer Kate Spade -- all of whom passed away during the year.
Google Trends redesign focuses on finding stories in the data
Remember Google Trends? The site that keeps you up to date on what the world has been searching for just got a makeover. According to the team, this redesign puts "more editorial data-based stories up front," along with a section featuring data stories picked out by a news team. You can easily check out the Year in Search dating back to 2001, while an intensity map can show where searches were popular by country or individual state. The easy-to-create topics and infographics are supposed to help news organizations sift through the available data, so don't be surprised if you see more stories based on trends.
Google offers real-time search data for news, images and video
Finding out what people are searching for in real time is a trivial matter these days, thanks to Google Trends. Online since 2015, the service is useful for discovering what the world is paying attention to, like why Donald Trump was elected last November or which Halloween costume will be the most played out. Heck, Mac users can even get a screensaver to visualize searches as they happen. Now Google is exposing even more of its real-time data to include news, images, video and even shopping results in your topical search area.
What the world searched on Google after the US elections
Based on the search strings that trended for November 9th, the world turned to Google in an effort to understand the President-elect's surprise win and the United States' complicated voting system. Google Trends posted the most popular searches after Donald Trump was named the 45th President of the United States on Twitter, and as Mashable noted, it reflects a lot of people's confusion.
Google helps you hear directly from presidential candidates
Trying to understand presidential candidates' positions through debates can be an exercise in frustration. You might get a sense of where they stand on the issues... or might watch helplessly as their voices are drowned out by boisterous rivals. Google thinks it has a better way to keep tabs on politicians. It's testing a feature that lets candidates share their views, photos and videos in real-time while you're searching for a debate. If a would-be leader has smart ideas, you'll know even when they don't get a chance to speak up on TV. The feature will first be available during Fox News' debate on January 28th (at 7PM Eastern), but it's easy to see this becoming a mainstay for future events.
Google 'Frightgeist' might help you avoid Halloween costume clashes
Google Trends has tapped into its daily search data to unearth the top 500 costume searches across the US. National and more local trends are listed (a whole lot of Star Wars characters and pirates out there), and if you're thinking about going as the Suicide Squad's Harley Quinn, expect a few awkward confrontations.
Google wants you to follow hot search trends in real time
Never mind waiting until after the fact to find out what people are searching for online -- Google wants you to know what's hot right fricking now. The internet giant has introduced real-time tracking to Google Trends, so you can follow a search frenzy as it happens. If you want to know which basketball team is dominating the buzz over the past hour (spoiler: it's the Golden State Warriors), you just have to narrow the scope accordingly to see a minute-by-minute graph. The trend page has also been redesigned to put a bigger emphasis on the latest stories, and you can dive deeper into niche subjects and specific regions. Yes, you're still looking at charts, but this refresh at least gives you a good excuse to visit Google Trends more than once in a blue moon. [Image credit: AP Photo/Virginia Mayo]
Google Trends email alerts will guarantee you never miss another cat meme
You can always swing by Google Trends if you want to gauge the popularity of a given search, but visiting that website every time can be a hassle. Thankfully, there's now an easier way: Google has added a subscription option that sends email notifications when there are changes in the interest levels for most searches, including hot searches, specific topics and the top US charts. If you want to see how long an internet meme survives or find out when your favorite team is creating a lot of buzz, you just have to visit Trends' subscription area to get started.
Google Trends is now, finally, a screen saver
The flying toasters and infinite space your sleeping computer's been living with are being retired. No, After Dark isn't being resurrected and, well, does Windows even come with a screen saver built-in anymore? It's Google, and specifically the Trends section of Google, that's leading the bleeding edge of screen saver tech: Mac users can now download a Trends-driven screen saver that...yep, it culls trending Google topics and pushes them to your screensaver. It's quite pretty! Head over here to grab it for yourself.
Google now offers Top Charts and visualization tool for trending topics
Instead of waiting until the end of the year for Google's annual Zeitgeist, you can now find out what's trending in any given month with a new Top Charts feature from Google Trends. Updated monthly and going back to 2004, Top Charts is built on the Knowledge Graph, so it's smart enough to house related keywords under one term for more accurate rankings. For example, searches for "giants baseball" and "sf giants" would go toward pushing "San Francisco Giants" up the ranks in a sports-related chart. Right now there are more than 40 top ten lists with more than 140 time periods available for your perusal. In addition to the charts, the Trends team has also rolled out a new visualization tool for "hot searches" that displays trending topics in a large colorful layout -- as seen below, you can customize it to display up to 25 searches at a time that endlessly shift and refresh, thus consuming our attention for the entire day.
Google retires more services, consolidates others in continued efficiency bid
When you run as many services as Google does, every once in a while you're going to have to do some pruning. Evidently Mountain View's got the secateurs out, having just announced the next batch of its projects that will be getting axed wound down. For the chop are: AdSense for Feeds, Classic Plus, Spreadsheet Gadgets, Places for Android, and +1 Reports in Webmaster Tools. Other services are being merged into existing properties to prevent overlap, such as Google Storage for Picasa and Drive -- which are now consolidated -- and Insights for Search is now part of Google Trends. Naturally, the search giant claims this is all about streamlining, and improving other core products. If the retired service involves a paid subscription, or legacy data, then you'll need to check the specifics on the official blog to find out how this will affect you, which fortunately for you, is just a tap of the source link away. [Image Credit: Shutterstock]
What we google on patch day
Althras on the Suramar (US) realm tipped us to the power that WoW players have over the internet as a whole. It appears that we are affecting the Google Trends data, particularly while the servers have been down. Of the top ten most researched terms on the search engine, WoW related items occupy four slots. Most of us seem interested in mods, since four of the six search terms are related to CT Mods, Titan Panel, etc. Other examples in our search engine monopoly refer to the Netherwing, Skettis and the additional content entering the game in Patch 2.1.0. As Althras puts it, being 8 million strong, with about half of the players being English speaking (give or take) can make a huge impact on the internet when focused on one specific purpose. As we spend our time waiting for the realms to come back up, we also show the internet powers that be that World of Warcraft players are affecting the virtual world around us. [via Althras]
