What People Are Watching

Everyday there are several books worth of material written on the issue of what people around the world are thinking or what they are interested in. There are also countless polls offered every year designed to produce “scientific proof” of what the worlds views are. However, any of these efforts inevitably run the risk that in quantum physics is called the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle which in a very butchered way could means that any number of issues - including the very effort of asking the question leads to changes in opinions. However the ability to look in on the actual actions and preferences of individuals is a dream of every analyst and marketing specialists. There are actually two very unique tools from Google to do just that.

The first is Google Trends which allows the user to type in terms and see where and in what languages those terms are the most popular. This particular tool was discussed about a year ago in an interesting article which points out some very unexpected indicators of what interest individuals in areas such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Needless to say there is an issue at play in this similar to the most famous wrong headline in American Political History in that access to the internet is something available to the elite, however these middle and upper classes are also those that have the time to devote to politics as well.

The second interesting tool is that available through Googles Video Search which under the “Popular“ section one can examine the 100 most popular videos that are viewed in any number of countries around the world including, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Indonesia. Interestingly many of those videos that are popular on the American version of this list also appear on those countries with majority muslim populations. One of the funnier entries on these lists was the presence of ”Weird Al’s White and Nerdy” video as the number 100 entry for the United Arab Emeries. Now although it is doubtful that one of his other songs “pretty fly for a rabbi” is likely to appear on the same list at any time in the future, it is potentially useful and even powerful tool for those involved in crafting the war of ideas to examine exactly what their targets enjoy, rather than assume anything.