Pepsi vs. Coca-Cola

Today, a face-off of two of the most well-known brands in the world:


Scale is based on the average worldwide traffic of coca-cola in all years.
pepsi 2.85
coca-cola 1.00

Surprisingly, Pepsi is much more Google-popular than Coca-Cola! Strange. Wait a second, how about including the "Coke" name with Coca-Cola?


Scale is based on the average worldwide traffic of coca-cola | coke
pepsi 0.77
coca-cola | coke 1.00

Yep. Now the picture looks more right: Coca-Cola leads. Lesson learned: watch out for name/concept variants... Actually, the market share of the two brands varies geographically as this 2007 New York Times map shows.

Update 8-26-08: I just thought about this photo that is the perfect illustration for this post. I took it in December 2006 in the Brussels National Airport in Belgium. Yes, that's a Coca-Cola vending machine with a Manneken Pis on, the iconic and funny statue of a little boy peeing—one of the highlights of a visit to Brussels!

Mitt Romney vs. Bobby Jindal vs. Joe Lieberman vs. Tom Ridge vs. Tim Pawlenty

After yesterday's Democratic veep stakes post, we of course need to have a look at the contenders to join McCain on the Republican ticket:


Scale is based on the average worldwide traffic of "bobby jindal" in all years.
mitt romney 8.00
bobby jindal 1.00
joe lieberman 1.00
tom ridge 1.00
tim pawlenty 0

Romney stands out totally as he is the only one to have participated in the primaries. Lieberman was defeated in his Democratic senatorial primary but then went on to win in November 2006 as an independent. This too is visible. Jindall has an even smaller peak in November 2007 when he was elected governor of Louisiana, the first Indo-American governor elected in any US state. But let us again look at a last-12-months graph courtesy of Google Trends:


Scale is based on the average worldwide traffic of "bobby jindal" in the last 12 months.
"mitt romney" 6.00
"bobby jindal" 1.00
"joe lieberman" 0.20
"tom ridge" 0.20
"tim pawlenty" 0.20

Romney is even more popular here because the primaries loomed so large. Finally, the last-30-days graph:


Scale is based on the average worldwide traffic of "bobby jindal" in the last 30 days.
"mitt romney" 1.35
"bobby jindal" 1.00
"joe lieberman" 0.40
"tom ridge" 0.55
"tim pawlenty" 0.55

After the primaries, we notice Tom Ridge peaking and remaining popular. The other candidates catch up with him in the end. They are not meaningfully separated though the in-anything-but-name Republican senator Lieberman has a slight advantage.

Joe Biden vs. Wesley Clark vs. Evan Bayh vs. Kathleen Sebelius vs. Tim Kaine

With the announcement of a Democratic vice presidential candidate imminent, I looked at the Google Trends popularity of the most-commonly named possibles.


Scale is based on the average worldwide traffic of "wesley clark" in all years.
"joe biden" 0.60
"wesley clark" 1.00
"evan bayh" 0.20
"kathleen sebelius" 0
"tim kaine" 0.20

I did not include Hillary Clinton for obvious reasons: she is only named as a not-very-possible surprise choice and her heated primary battle with Barack Obama would totally throw of the comparison. The bottom "No data available" part of the graph just means that Google Trends can't track word compounds in its news sources.

This traditional graph doesn't really say much because Wesley Clark's popularity from when he was running in the 2004 Democratic presidential primaries distorts the overall picture. Maybe it makes more sense to gauge the candidates during the last 12 months:


Scale is based on the average worldwide traffic of "wesley clark" in the last 12 months.
"joe biden" 2.60
"wesley clark" 1.00
"evan bayh" 0.90
"kathleen sebelius" 0.80
"tim kaine" 0.70

Joe Biden is overall in the lead though most candidates have had their moment in the sun: Biden in late 2007-early 2008, Sebelius in about February 2008 and the 3 remaining ones in the last month or two. I could be wrong but those peaks probably are linked with heightened speculation about them being picked for the VP slot at those times, at least for the 4 lower-tier candidates. Biden of course ran in the early primaries. But maybe we are still looking at too long a period? How about the last 30 days:


Scale is based on the average worldwide traffic of "wesley clark" in the last 30 days.
"joe biden"< 7.00
"wesley clark" 1.00
"evan bayh" 8.50
"kathleen sebelius" 2.50
"tim kaine" 8.50

What has changed? Clark now becomes negligible while Biden has surged the most in recent speculation-induced popularity. Kaine and Bayh both have enjoyed intense speculation at different times but have ended about even with Sebelius. So does this mean Obama will pick Biden? Not necessarily of course... we'll know soon enough.

Denver vs. Minneapolis

As the political conventions are coming up, I thought I'd face off the two cities where they are held.


Scale is based on the average worldwide traffic of denver in all years.
denver 1.00
minneapolis 0.45

Denver wins this one. The end of 2006 peak we see for Denver relates to two severe blizzards. The mid-2007 high for Minneapolis is connected with a freeway bridge collapse.

Open Source vs. Copyright vs. Creative Commons vs. Open Access vs. Copyleft

Scale is based on the average worldwide traffic of "creative commons" in all years.
"open source" 22.6
copyright 15.2
"creative commons" 1.00
"open access"< 0.60
copyleft 0.20

A face-off among the internet vanguard today. Googlers go for "open source" followed by "copyright." The remaining three concepts are relatively unknown. In other words, the Open Access movement has its work cut out for it. Notice also that "copyright" is gaining traction in news while receding in searches. Due to the limitations of Google Trends, we cannot ascertain whether the Open Source movement follows the same trend.

War vs. Peace

war
peace

No surprise here: war gets a lot more attention than peace, and increasingly so. Sad state of the world. Notice the dips in the war line during the summers.