Query logs let by user on search-engines have helped create efficient tools for trend analysis, from commercial use to fore- casting epidemics. In this paper, we propose a new method and system for cultural trends analysis based on Google auto- complete suggestions. We present Zeitgeist Borders, a toolkit enabling any user to collect and analyze associations between queries, suggestions and various regions of the world. We re- port unexpected observations about several behavioural and geographical trends along with promising uses. Paper page : http://hal.inria.fr/hal-00805048 Project page : http://fabelier.org/towards-google-borders/ Newscientist article on the paper : http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/onepercent/2013/04/zeitgeist-borders-google.html

1. Towards Google Borders
Antoine Mazieres, Samuel Huron
This Presentation is under Creative Commons : Attribution, Non commercial, Derivative

2. Google auto complete is usefull
for refining your request :
http://goo.gl/V1ICV

3. And some times funny
http://goo.gl/jNDQb

4. And some times provide
particular things.
We have a guess for you…

5. What is the most common
autocompletion you will get if you
query the name of all french
political people in Google.FR ?

6. ?

7. Some French
newspaper paper reply
“Juif” (Jewish)
http://goo.gl/FQoG3
http://goo.gl/StOLb

8. http://goo.gl/FQoG3
Weird ?

9. Could we see other pattern in the
autocompletion?
And what does it means ?

10. Is it
only in France ? or in europe ?

11. Or in the Google’ web world ?
Map from : http://www.bytelevel.com/map/ccTLD.html

12. To investigate that we made :
Google borders allow you to query and visualize all Google
auto completion in the World for one query.

13. 1/ make a query
2/ received the reply
sort by number of
occurrences
3/ Visualize the spread
of a completion
over the world

14. We found some unexpected facts
about :
- Our culture
- People Popularity
- Brands distribution

15. For instance
If we query :
“What if”
The most popular completion are:
A “If god was one of us”
B “if money didn’t matter”
C “If there was no google”

16. For instance
If we query :
“Why Society”
The most popular completion are:
A “Is a complex matter”
B “Needs religion”
C “Is wrong”

17. For instance
For example, “amazon” is served as first
suggestion among 40% of all TLDs over the
letter “a”.
If we query :
Each letter of the
latin alphabet.
.
56% Of the 3 most popular
completion over the
world
Are US or UK Brands
or products.

18. For instance
If we query :
“Why kids”
The most popular completion are:
“Why kids are the worst”
“Why kids hate school”
“Why kids lie”
But in India, they seems
to have different completion:
“Why kids vomit”
“Why kids don’t eat”
“Why kids urinate …”

19. WE NEED MORE DATA TO
GO FURTHER !
IF SOMBODY FROM IS IN THE AUDIENCE
Contact us !

20. For question :
Antoine Mazieres
Tweeter : @Mazieres
Mail : antoine.mazieres@gmail.com
Samuel Huron
Tweeter : @cybunk
Mail : Samuel.huron@cybunk.com
For playing and coding:
It‘s OPENSOURCE, Fork Google Borders on github :
https://github.com/fabelier/Zeitgeist-Borders