Skip to main content

Through the Google lens: Search trends May 22-28

From corruption charges rocking the football world to a 50-foot dinosaur, here’s a look at what everyone was searching this week:

Deadly storms in Texas
Widespread flooding caused by heavy rains in Texas and Oklahoma has left many dead, missing or unaccounted for, along with seriously damaged property and abandoned vehicles. With more severe weather predicted this weekend, cities across Texas topped the places searching for “storms,” with “How long does it take for streets to clear a flood?” and “where is it flooded in Houston” among the top storm-related questions.
Soccer scandal
Football’s governing body was in the search spotlight this week after the arrest of several FIFA officials in a dawn raid at a hotel in Zurich, Switzerland. There were more than half a million “FIFA” searches on Tuesday alone, with a top related question being the basic “What is FIFA?” (perhaps for those that call it “soccer”). Just as fans of “The Beautiful Game” span the globe, so do searches related to this week’s alleged ugliness. Costa Rica and Uruguay—home to two of the indicted officials—are among the top 10 countries searching for #FIFAarrests.



Hold on to your butts ... again
It’s a Jurassic World. We just live in it. Twenty-two years after the original “Jurassic Park” movie, the release of “Jurassic World” is set to wow audiences worldwide, and ticket pre-sales and general dino-excitement have caused a 100,000+ search spike, while the trailer has topped 60 million YouTube views. Search-wise, the U.S. and Australia are most excited about the blockbuster, which will pit star Chris Pratt against a 50-foot-tall dinosaur named Indominus Rex. We’ll have to wait until June for the showdown, but based on current search interest, our money's on Pratt.

Tip of the week
This weekend is Manhattanhenge, the moment when the setting sun aligns precisely with Manhattan’s street grid. Whether you’re in New York or not, you can find out when the sun will dip below the horizon with a simple “Ok Google, when does the sun set?” You’ll get an answer tailored for your location.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Bitcoin's blockchain technology is set to usurp lawyers

Big technology companies such as Google employ relatively few people and pay little tax, in the tradition of multinational companies. At first blush, the arrival of digital currencies like bitcoin would seem to spell more in the way of gutting existing industries, in this case payments and financial services. IBTimes recently spoke with Coinsilium, a hybrid venture capital and business growth consultancy which nurtures a stable of early-stage blockchain innovations. It aims to be the first publicly listed firm to offer investors exposure to a basket of start-ups using distributed ledger technology in a range of applications. Executive chairman Cameron Parry believes there's a realm of possibilities that cannot yet be seen that will be "maybe 10 years in the future".  "The big way to go has always been advertising – you built up subscribers and then advertising was the route to revenues. But as more people use mobile devices you can't actually f...

Jaipur Pink Panthers, Abhishek Bachchan, Pro Kabaddi League, Kabaddi

Jaipur Pink Panthers' owner Abhishek Bachchan said his wife and actress Aishwarya Rai is not just an avid follower of the Pro Kabaddi League side as well as Indian Super League football franchise Chennaiyin FC that he owns but also offers him valuable inputs which aids his functioning as a franchise owner. Raider Jasvir Singh got four points for the Panthers from a single raid with 10 minutes left when he got a touch on the last two Mumba players standing to pack the rivals off for a second lona and two additional points. Things went neck to neck in the initial stage, the highlight being U Mumba captain Anup Kumar taking three rivals out to help his side take a 4-2 lead before the Panthers caught up and then jumped ahead to a two-point lead (8-6). For U Mumba, the points tally in raiding was expectedly led by captain Anup Kumar(11) but what swung the game the Panthers way was superior defending through which they secured 13 points as compared to their rivals'. Stout defe...

asana

Cursory observers of political events in South Asia must be surprised at how quickly India-Pakistan relations, once seen to be on the upswing after a new government took over in India in 2014, have gone downhill in the last fortnight. When Prime Minister Narendra Modi unexpectedly invited all heads of South Asian nations for his swearing in, almost all eyes were on the cordiality between him and Pakistan's prime minister, Nawaz Sharif. Similarly, when he decided to drop by Lahore last December to wish Sharif birthday wishes as he flew back from Afghanistan, Modi appeared to signal a resolve to address the perpetually vexed relations between the two nations. Modi's visit to Lahore was followed by an attack on an important Indian air force base in the north Indian city of Pathankot by Jaish-e-Mohammad, or JeM, an outlawed militant group based in Pakistan. The Pakistan government's condemnation and its offer to assist with the investigations was seen to be an important ...