Olympics vs. Tour de France

Let's compare two big international sporting events this time, again with thanks to Google Trends.


Scale is based on the average worldwide traffic of olympics in all years.
olympics 1.00
"tour de france" 0.80

A. Athens Olympics
Chicago Daily Southtown - Aug 24 2004;
B. Turin Winter Olympics: Your 2-minute guide to the Winter Olympics
Tucson Citizen - Feb 10 2006;
C. Winter Olympics
Unison.ie - Feb 13 2006;
D. Mancuso Salvages Olympics for US Women
Glasgow Daily Times - Feb 24 2006;
E. UK's Brown won't attend Olympics opening
Houston Chronicle - Apr 9 2008;
F. A to Z of the Beijing Olympics
24 Hours Vancouver - Aug 8 2008;

Notice the clearly seasonal aspect of the interest in both events: the Tour de France every year in the summer, the Summer Olympics every 4 years and the Winter Olympics ditto but in the winter. Also, there was a lot more interest in the Tour de France internationally, esp. in the US, when Lance Armstrong was still competing...

Obama vs. McCain

Now that the two main candidates for president are known, let's have a look at how they've fared these last four years.

Google Trends yields this graph:

Scale is based on the average worldwide traffic of obama in all years.
obama 1.00
mccain 0.80

A. McCain in command; Obama, Clinton battle
Concord Monitor - Feb 6 2008;
B. Obama, McCain win in Wisconsin
The Herald - Feb 20 2008;
C. Obama thanks Obama
Cape Times (subscription) - Mar 5 2008;
D. Clinton wins in Indiana, Obama wins NC
AZ Central.com - May 7 2008;
E. Obama clinches nomination
Hindu - Jun 4 2008;
F. Obama in Berlin
OpEdNews - Jul 24 2008;

Bottomline: Obama was more often in the press in the past too, this is not just a recent phenomenon.


Update 8-17-08: The Boston Globe has a very interesting comparison of the frequency of specific words on Obama and McCain's blogs, in the form of "word piles":

iPod vs. webcam vs. cell phone

Scale is based on the average worldwide traffic of ipod in all years.
ipod 1.00
webcam 0.58
"cell phone" 0.26

A. Apple unveils Mac mini iPod Shuffle
MLive.com - Jan 12 2005
B. Apple unveils iPod nano; cell phone iPod
Reuters.uk - Sep 8 2005
C. Apple Video iPod
KVOA.com - Oct 12 2005
D. Apple Launches New iPod, iPod nano & iPod shuffle
IT News Online - Sep 13 2006
E. A new iPod accessory
KVIA - Jan 9 2007
F. Apple Unloads New iPod Nano, iPod Classic, iPod Touch
Mobilemag.com - Sep 6 2007


Popularity of the above-mentioned search terms in Google (relative) and Google News (absolute). Notice the peaks during the annual mad buying season of Christmas. The other highs of the iPod are easy to explain: times when new models were introduced. See About Google Trends for an explanation of the methodology.

Source: Google Trends