January 23, 2009 by Mark Isle
Google has released the figures for inauguration day searches in an effort to underline how online information gathering has moved into the mainstream since 2001. A Fairly self evident point but let’s go with it – according to Google, searches relating to Bush’s second inaugural address in 2005 increased by a factor of 10 from 2001. Figures for searches relating to Barack Obama’s inaugural were even higher.
Of course they’re right! Over those eight years the Internet has changed from just another information source to probably the benchmark medium for informing yourself about practically anything. However, the really interesting stuff in the results comes from digging a little deeper into the data.
For instance, 12 percent of the queries came from outside the United States. That’s a pretty impressive number of people wanting to hear a foreign politician speak and serves to underline the global nature of Obama’s appeal. Another telling statistic is the frequency of video related queries. As recently as the 2005 inauguration there were very few of these, this time there were so many that video related queries actually made up around a third of the total number, seemingly vindicating those who have called this the first YouTube election.
Related posts:
- CNN and Microsoft to Photosynth Obama
- Download Function coming to YouTube?
- Google concedes majority share of Chinese internet market to search provider Baidu
- Site speed to become a factor in Google search rankings
- Latest Figures Indicate Impact of Google’s SSL Search Underestimated
- Facebook’s next Step
