Google Trend Midden

As I am famously about to say, you can tell a lot about a country by their Google Trends data. For those who came in late, Google has a service called “Google Trends” where you can track the hottest search items in a given region at a given date.The searches are already done…the trends data is just the left-over remains. Hence the title of this post.

A midden is (to quote Google):

eitchen midden: (archeology) a mound of domestic refuse containing shells and animal bones marking the site of a prehistoric settlement

Now that we have the definitions out of the way.

Ever since Amit and I started this blog, I have been observing  Google Trends data to see what catches Indian surfers’ fancy. I expected to see the usual stuff that a country with the world’s largest 15-25 year old male population would likely be searching for. I was surprised.

It turns out that the wise surfers of India are not interested in lewd offerings on the internet. Far from it. It turns out that my desi brothers and sisters are searching instead for two things that arouse their passions more. They search for entrance exam results, and cricket scores.

Over the last three months, the Top 20 searches on Google in India will contain about 10 items related to the entrance exam du jour, and another 8 items for the cricket score du jour. Check out the snaps below.

That leaves me confused and concerned. What happened to the celebrity culture in India? What about the TV shows? What, lastly, about the level of political discourse? Why are people not voting for these things with their fingers?

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