2/22/2006

Google Press Center: Zeitgeist

Google's Zeitgeistis an overview of the most popular search terms for the week. They also have breakdowns in sub-categories for previous months (it runs a bit behind, now featuring November) or for countries around the world. For instance, this week's top search is, unsurprising "torino games". More surprising is that number 11 is "face transplant", or that #8 is "zillow". WTF is zillow? Clicking on the google link leads me to zillow.com. Hmmm... it's a real estate valuation search engine. Wow! Put in an address, and it gives you the assessed value of the home and others nearby, overlaid on a sattelite image of the area. See? This is why google zeitgeist is cool! You find the neatest things that have somehow passed you by!

If you haven't checked it out before, give it a look. It's strangely addictive!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This site was featured on AOL News yesterday in the Lifestyle section. Our local county government in all their infinite wisdom has published tax values & other real estate info (including maps & photos) on their website for several years now. While I realize it's always been public information, at least it used to be more of an effort for the criminals to go down to the register of deeds office and look it up manually. Now they can choose their burglary targets with the click of a mouse based on home values (the theory being that someone with an expensive home has expensive stuff worth stealing inside). But there I go being paranoid again....

TheFishmonger said...

Yeah, I can see the point, but how many home invvasion types will spend time looking for targets on the internet? I think they know where the rich folks live. They just look for the neighborhood where there isn't anybody driving a rusted 97 Malibu with a plush fish in the back window.

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