Google-Zeitgeist

Google has released top-ten lists of various things people have searched over the year 2011, under the name "Google-Zeitgeist," and also broken down the analysis by country. It reveals a lot about our culture! And it's kinda scary sometimes... (like what counts as a "book" in the US!). Here's the site, have fun playing around with it: http://www.googlezeitgeist.com

Here is Germany's list of top 10 foods being googled...interesting that Pizza is #1. I'm just happy both Kuchen (#2) and Torte (#8) made it on the list.

Here is a comparison between Italy, Austria, and Germany.  Italy and Austria both have a lot more traditional foods on their lists, although "cupcakes" are starting to be a European trend.

And this is kinda funny...a comparison of German and US news events. In Germany, it's the nuclear catastrophe in Japan and the summer's e.coli scare. In the U.S., Hurricane Irene, Occupy, and Japan at #3. Germany's #4 is "DSDS," or "Deutschland sucht den Superstar," the equivalent of American Idol (I think...).  So they watch this crap, too.

 And one more, something hilarious...what kinds of things people have searched for (in the US), in the formula "What is X" Apparently, we don't know what "love" is, or we are concerned about that, among other strange diseases.