Tag: trend

Blogging isn’t what it used to be

From time to time, I assume something, evaluate that assumption, and discover that the reality is opposite to what I thought it was. That’s exactly what happened when I thought about the dynamics of Google searches for “create a site,” compared to the searches for “create a blog.” I was sure that there would be much more searches for “create a site.” I was wrong

blogging_is_not_what_it_used_to_be.png

There are several interesting insights that one can drive from that small analysis.

  1. The number of people who search for “create a site” is continuously dropping.
  2. Ever since 2009, the number of searches for “create a site” is smaller than the number of searches for “create a blog.” Why? I have no idea
  3. Blog creation search dynamics is also interesting. Both “start a blog” and “create a blog” have been decreasing since January 2011. However, despite the fact that both the curves started at the same height, and reached the same peak, they did so in different trajectories. “Create a blog” reached a peak gradually, following a concave path. “Start a blog,” on the other hand, reached the peak following a convex path that resembles exponential growth. For some reason, in January 2009 growth of both the searches stopped.

Usually, in posts like this, you would expect an analysis that explains the difference. I don’t have any answers. However, if you have any hypothesis, I will be glad to hear.

 

Buzzword shift

Many years ago, I tried to build something that today would have been called “Google Trends for Pubmed”. One thing that I’ve found during that process was how the emergence of HIV-related research reduced the number of cancer studies and how, several years later, the HIV research boom settled down, while letting the cancer research back.

I recalled about that project of mine when I took a look at the Google Trends data for, a once popular buzz-phrases, “data mining” and pattern recognition.  Sic transit gloria mundi.

Screenshot of Google Trends data for (in decreasing order): "Machine Learning" , "Data Science", "Data Mining", "Pattern Recognition"

It’s not surprising that “Data Science” was the less popular term in 2004. As I already mentioned, “Data Science” is a relatively new term. What does surprise me is the fact that in the past, “Machine Learning” was so less popular that “Data Mining”. Even more surprising is the fact that Google Trends ranks “Machine Learning” almost twice as high, as “Data Science”. I was expecting to see the opposite.

“Pattern Recognition,” that, in 2004, was as (not) popular as “Machine Learning” become even less popular today. Does that mean that nobody is searching for patterns anymore? Not at all. The 2004 pattern recognition experts are now machine learning professors senior data scientists or if they work in academia, machine learning professors.

PS: does anybody know the reason behind the apparent seasonality in “Data Mining” trends?