Monday, May 28, 2007

Long phrases in Hot Trends

I believe that people usually such for short phrases on Google. A phrase longer than five words is unusual. Nevertheless, some very long phrases stand out on Hot Trends.

On Sunday, May 27, the number 23 Hot Trends search was a twelve-word phrase: cell phone subscribers in iraq and phone use has gone up 158. This phrase was part of a "Good News from Iraq" email in 2005. Why is it popular again?

There are also two long questions -- rather than crossword clues -- in the list for Monday, May 28, 2007 (4 PM PDT).

72. what 1961 movie helped spark a new food craze when warren beatty asked “hey what is pizza

87. what state waited until 2000 to ask minnesota for the confederate flag lost during pickett’s charge

Replies to the first question on Yahoo! Answers indicate that it comes from a trivia contest on KILT radio in Houston. I suspect that the second question comes from the same source. Maybe I'll subscribe to KILT's Loyal Listener Club to keep track of future contests!

Incidentally, I noticed some Houston-related crossword clues in a previous Hot Trends list. I'll explore the issue of "Houston" searches in a later post.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

That google search for cell phone use in iraq came up, almost certainly, because of this post from very prominent liberal blogger atrios:

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_05_27_archive.html#7284215207310648916

Scott said...

Eschaton is popular enough to trigger a flurry of searches; and the timing is right. But why the part about cell phones, and not other parts of the email?