Using Google Trends to Map Interest in Classic Gaming and Classic Computing

[Fort Apocalypse]

According to google trends, the number of people searching for classic gaming and roms have been steadily decreasing over the past few years, as is the interest in people searching for women (for those interested in men, interest has stayed relatively constant), while interest in the wii is going up (and spikes in early Dec.). From the many searches I tried (apple ii, commodore 64, atari 2600), it at first appeared that classic gaming and classic computing interest was going down, but other searches in more mundane things were also on the decrease, leading me to believe that people are becoming less google-centric and using other sites more (like AtariAge!).

 

Google searches for "roms"

Google searches for "women"

Google searches for "wii"

Edited November 12, 2008 by Fort Apocalypse

[Albert]

Interesting. I plugged in the following terms:

 

Atari

Atari 2600

ColecoVision

Intellivision

Atari 5200

Atari 7800

Atari Lynx

Atari Jaguar

 

They are all trending down, some significantly. I tried some other search terms, for curiosity's sake:

 

Pizza - Up

Sex - Up

Hawaii - Down

mountain biking - Down

mac os x - Down

microsoft windows - Down

 

Not really sure what to read into all that.

 

..Al

[Artlover]

it at first appeared that classic gaming and classic computing interest was going down, but other searches in more mundane things were also on the decrease, leading me to believe that people are becoming less google-centric and using other sites more

Data mining/storage like this doesn't exactly help towards that either.

 

You combine massive stores of searches being done for this kind of stuff, plus the fact that Google does "learn" your own individual search habits and auto filters (with no way to disable) your results based on your history - it translates into that they know everything everyone is searching for and who is making said searches.

 

I don't care for that myself. Searching should be like the wind. Who I am and what I searched for should be GONE once I leave their page.

 

All them mining away their data does is make my not want to use Google for a lot of the more sensitive subjects. Never know when the FBI will be on Google's door step with a copy of the Patriot Act in one hand, and a Search Warrent in the other.

[fiddlepaddle]

The NSA collects all data traffic, and they don't need a search warrant. Fortunately, being a government bureaucracy, they don't bother me much.

 

Of course, this message has probably just been flagged...