Hearst Castle vs. William Randolph Hearst vs. Julia Morgan

I recently visited Hearst Castle in San Simeon, CA. It is unique and definitely worth seeing. It was built over many years (1919-1947) by architect Julia Morgan for newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. I thought I'd check on the Google-popularity of the complex, its owner and its architect.



The palatial estate, an eclectic mix of European and Spanish Colonial styles, furnishings and collectibles, was the most popular. The surprise lay more in the fact that the powerful Mr. Hearst barely bested Ms. Morgan. Note that all three trend downwards. I include a few pictures I took at the Castle in August:






Here a few more taken in November 2007:

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!