Google Public Data Explorer Goes Live
Google |
Thanks to a partnership formed in April last year between Google and various data gathering organizations, a lot of useful statistic information that was already publicly available became even more accessible online through Google search.
Seven months later, the information dissemination service was generously expanded, opening its doors to include the World Bank’s libraries of information. This week, however, Google shares a snapshot of some of the most popular public data search topics currently riding the Google search waves, even throwing in the Google Public Data Explorer visualization tool for good measure. These announcements were made via the Google Blog and posted by Jürgen Schwärzler, a statistician from Google’s Public Data team.
According to Schwärzler, Google naturally wants the most reliable and relevant data and statistics to be included in their public data search feature. To be able to do so, they analyzed the aggregation of billions of search queries people typed into the Google’s search fields and utilized data from a multitude of sources including Google Trends and Insights for Search. This is apparently the same process that churns out the Google Zeitgeist.
Further analysis, systematized groupings and a series of filtering processes produced a complete list. To give us but a gist of the trending search topics in public information and statistics, here is the list’s top 10:
1. School comparisons
2. Unemployment
3. Population
4. Sales tax
5. Salaries
6. Exchange rates
7. Crime statistics
8. Health statistics (health conditions)
9. Disaster statistics
10. Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
To supplement this steady stream of search data, Google’s Public Data Explorer has gone live and is thus readily available for anyone in need of a visual tool to better organize and understand the public statistic information. This is a new experimental product fresh off Google Labs that projects and mashes up searched information into graphs, maps and charts for easier analysis.
When you first visit the Explorer’s page, you are laid out with a series of data particulars you can customize to get the statistic you need. Once you have completed you chart, you can even share it with anyone online by copying the link and embedding it into you own blog or Web site. A Play button is even provided to show the dramatic changes over the years to the data.
As of writing, the Google Public Data Explorer provides information from the World Bank, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and the US Census Bureau among five others. This new service was borne out of Google’s acquisition of Trendalayzer in 2007 where the Internet mogul decided to develop a product that would make public information available for intuitive, visual exploration and analysis.
Popularity: 6% [?]
RSpears @ March 16, 2010
