See who likes what, when and where

A stat dork's wet dream.

I don't try and keep my love for Google a secret.

I convert as many people as I can to using Gmail. I use Google Maps religiously. If Google has a product, chances are I find a way to use it. And now, Google has allowed me to see what people are interested in.

Spending hours and hours on Google Trends, cross referencing what people search for in relation to other similar topics is endlessly entertaining.

For instance, more people seem to care about the NBA draft than the penultimate ultimate contest in the NBA, the Finals. Also, more people in the Philipines seem to care about the Finals than Americans do. Greeks seem to love the All-Star game and the Finals, but could care less about the draft. Is any of this beneficial to the average person? Probably not. But if you're a giant dork about this kind of stuff like I am, it's incredibly interesting.

Some more obvious ones show that Americans care more about football than any other sport. Duh. However, what is interesting is that the top five cities that search for "football" the most are all in close proximity to major college football centers. Birmingham AL; Columbus, OH; and Omaha, NE; Columbis, SC and Austin, TX are interested in football more than any NFL city. New Orleans is the NFL city closest at ninth overall. With the overwhelming popularity of the NFL, you would imagine that more people would be searching in NFL cities. I do acknowledge that these results aren't necessarily 100 percent accurate since many fans search for specific players and teams as their entry points to finding information. For that reason, it fascinates me that college football fans would be venturing forth with less specific searches. Again, I am a dork.

To vary from the beaten path for a bit, do some non-sport-related searches. One really obvious one is sex vs. love, with sex obviously winning hand over fist (no pun intended). Also, it should be noted that Pakistanis and Egyptians love them some sex. I imagine the United States is nowhere to be found on this list as we all have weird-ass specific searches for the kind of sex we want to see. We're very specific like that.

Other searches can be a bit more disturbing. Some are probably on their way to aligning a bit more evenly of late.

Reasonably yours,
Scooter
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