Google today announced a handy new product that allows to see search trends for any given query, location and time range. The filter allows to drill down into countries and subregions, different time brackets and categories. Personally, I would find it beneficial if it would allow to differentiate between searches from PC desktop contexts vs. from mobile phones. However, I appreciate this is not a priority for Google today.
The interface is a very much Google-typical UI, minimalistic and functional.
I decided to give it go by comparing the search trends of users in the UK and Japan (even though Google is actually behind Yahoo in Japan in terms of marketshare the search base in Japan is certainly big enough to be considered representative) in the Entertainment category in 2008:
(Note: Google caveats as follows – “Please note that Insights for Search applies a filter for search terms that may be explicitly sexual. No filter is 100% accurate, but these filters should eliminate most inappropriate material.”)
Screenshot Japan Google Insights Entertainment
... and the same for the UK
Not too surprisingly, Youtube is the top site in both markets (although it is by no means a given that a global web brand like Youtube is successful in JP as well, see recent troubles by Facebook and MySpace).
In the UK, users are obviously almost equally hungry for news in their spare time, with “bbc” being the runner-up. In Japan however, local youtube rival Nico Nico Douga (ニコニコ) takes the number two spot.
Another feature I really like is a heat map for any given search map by region – ie. in which regions that search term finds the highest / least interest. Here is what this looks like for “youtube” in Japan:
Heatmap for query youtube in Japan
I am slightly surprised to see that “lyrics” are the third most interesting entertainment topic for users in the UK – followed closely by cinema-related searches (“cinema” and “odeon”), videos, games and “bbc sport”. The obvious interpretation is that in a culture of binge drinking people want to make sure they stock up on stuff to bawl when leaving the pub at the weekend.
However, this craziness about [lyrics] is not confined to the British isles – “lyrics” (歌詞 – kashi) are actually also the third most searched for term in Japan.
While there are obvious geographic similarities between the two countries (both are islands) and other aspects of society (cars drive on the left side of the road, constitutional monarchies govern the people, the national football teams never make it very far etc.) this was a similarity I did not expect.
And then it dawned on me – one word: Karaoke.
Makes perfect sense.
Japanese users then also look for movies (映画 – eiga), TV (テレビ – TV), gundam.info (a Manga portal), News / TV (NHK – Japan Broadcasting Corporation) and Gyao (I don’t know what this is – looks like an Entertainment portal).
In both markets the Enterainment category has seen substantial growth, from close to 0 up to 15% in JP and almost 30% in UK. I wonder if this has to do with a different categorization of search terms by Google, or if this is accurate – and if so, what has been causing this growth in the past 6-7 months? Wider spread of broadband connectivity? A trend for people to move away from TV to online entertainment ?
