"A" is for Amazon!
- By Michael Stillman
"A" is for Amazon, according to Google Suggest
By Michael Stillman
Have you ever known someone who knew what you were thinking so well that they could finish your sentences? That can be annoying, but it can also be very helpful, particularly if you have trouble finishing them yourself. Sometimes, you may know the beginning of a phrase, an idiom, a book title, but can't remember the rest. If you have to write much, and booksellers are always writing descriptions, you could undoubtedly use a little help now and then. Well here it is, and it's brought to you by your mental twin, your better half, your partner in life, Google.
Is there anything Google doesn't do? This one is called "Google Suggest." I'm sure that somewhere on their site, there's a "Google Coffee" that will make a fresh cup of coffee and place it on my desk, if I could just find where on their site it is located. For now, I'll have to settle for a plethora of other interesting, strange concoctions that Google has brewed up for me. Google Suggest is such a feature, and for those who could use its assistance, or just want a few minutes of entertainment, we're here to tell you all about it.
Google Suggest looks just like the Google search page. However, as you type first letters, then words, in the search box, it offers you lots of suggestions to fill your thought. Where does it get these suggestions? From other people's searches. They keep track of how many times people search for everything, so letter by letter, word by word, they know what you are most likely to enter next, even if you don't.
So let's try a few phrases those of a literary mind might try. What comes after "uncle?" I can read your mind better than Google. You said "Tom's Cabin." So did Google, but only as a third choice. "Uncle Sam" got fifteen times as many searches. But Uncle Tom also got walloped by "Uncle Buck," a 1989 grade B movie with John Candy and Macaulay Culkin. So much for the intellectualism of Google searchers. Hick musician Uncle Kracker would also have beaten Uncle Tom were his vote not split between "Uncle Kracker" and "Uncle Cracker."
Here's one that will make you feel better. Enter "Huckleberry," and the winner is, you guessed it, Huckleberry Finn. The Mark Twain character beat Hanna and Barbera's Huckleberry Hound by a landslide. Tom Sawyer does not fare so well among the Toms. He doesn't make it, though screw-loose actor Tom Cruise, overpriced designer Tommy Hilfiger, gravelly-voiced singer Tom Waits, and Quarterback Tom Brady, even though he is not going back to the Super Bowl this year, qualified. So did an author, adventure writer Tom Clancy. Huckleberry Finn's friend did not qualify.
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"A" is for Amazon!
- By Michael Stillman
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Now let's try "William." "William" is a common name. What chance does Shakespeare have, even if he is the most famous author ever? The answer is, he does quite well, coming in third for "William." But at the top, with almost four times as many searches, is William Hill. Who is William Hill? I haven't a clue. I look him up, but there are many William Hills, none of whom seem that important. Then I realize. William Hill runs an online sports betting site. The Bard hasn't a prayer against this guy for our attention. The only other William to beat out Shakespeare is William Morris, of advertising agency fame. Or is it 19th century British socialist writer William Morris? We have no way of knowing.
Of course, Google knows, since they know which links were clicked after the search was completed. They know whether you were interested in reading about the socialist writer or the capitalist ad agency. But they aren't telling. No wonder the government is trying to force all of this data out of Google's hands. If you were the president, wouldn't you want to know whether I was a follower of William Morris the communist or William Morris the capitalist? Of course you would. How else would you know whether to tap my phone or hit me up for a campaign contribution?
Actually, you might think Google Suggest is the answer to the government's prayers. They said they needed to search through Google's records to see what type of pornographic sites people are looking for in order to protect our children. Google Suggest should provide their answer. Despite my natural fear that my searches could lead to a visit from the FBI, I decided to play the courageous reporter and see what happened if I tried some risky, or risque, searches. So I typed in "por." Guess what came up on top? Pornography? No. Portugal! More internet searchers are interested in Portugal than pornography! Sure they are. Pornography is nowhere to be found. I think I have the Chinese version of Google Suggest, the one where they eliminate the sites the government doesn't want you to see. Try "se." Do you think the most commonly searched "se" word ends in "x?" Not according to Google. The most commonly searched "se" word is "search" itself. Who searches for "search?" Try one billion, two hundred twenty million people, according to Google. And they also search for Sears and Sesame Street, but no "se" words ending in "x." Come on. More people search the internet for Sesame Street than sex? Now I know that one of the main features of Google Suggest is censorship. I guess maybe our government has done as good a job of intimidating Google as has the Chinese. These answers are about as accurate as a politician's.
So this leads to another fascinating exercise. What if we enter just one letter? What is the most searched for words or phrases for each letter? We are about to construct the world's most up-to-date alphabet book. Book lovers will like the way it starts. "A" is for Amazon, and I don't think those 214 million searchers were looking for the river. "B" is for Best Buy, but only by a hair over the BBC. Then come cars, Dell, eBay, flowers, games, http, images, jobs, king, love, music, news, orange, pubmed, quotes, ringtones, Sony, Target, UPS, virgin, weather, xml, Yahoo, and zip code. You can carry this out to further levels if you like, from "aa" for the AAA, to "zz" for ZZ Top. Or how about numbers: 1040, 24, 3 mobile, 420, 5+22, 67, 7 11, 89, and 9 11.
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"A" is for Amazon!
- By Michael Stillman
none
If you go a little deeper, you can get some very strange answers. For example, I typed in "23," and one of the answers was "23 p of c in the h b." What on earth does that mean? Google says 2,730,000 people searched for that phrase. I'm guessing it's some rap lyrics or secret code, but I don't know. My kids are in school now so I can't ask.
What does all of this say about us, our times, our culture? There must be some key insights hidden within this alphabet soup, but I haven't figured it out. I'll leave that to the sociologists. If we had done this a hundred years ago, we might still have found love and flowers, but we certainly wouldn't have been searching for http or xml, not eBay, Yahoo, ringtones or zip codes. Of the eight company names (maybe 9 if "virgin" refers primarily to Richard Branson's various "Virgin" companies), the oldest must be UPS, perhaps a few decades old. Where is Standard Oil, U.S. Steel, General Motors, A.T. & T., General Electric, Union Pacific, even I.B.M? The world has changed since I was young. Youth is having its way.
Go to Google Suggest to try it for yourself.
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