This is a great brainstorming tool for doing light blogspam-style "journalism", if your readers don't know about it (which they probably don't). Draw something with a rather unlikely looking feature— a graph that strikes the reader as quite definitely not just random noise. See if you get anything interesting in return. If yes, conjure up a backstory, and write up a post in a confident, assertive tone, that closes with the graph as your "care to explain <i>this</i>?!" evidence nailing home your suspicion.
Seems like the typical "pre-Plus" Google project: limited usefulness, but interesting from an engineering standpoint.<p>Noticed that it still contains share buttons for two defunct Google services: Google Buzz and Google Reader
Bad news for "linux"<p><a href="http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id%3AWuHjnmaXanT&e=linux&t=weekly&p=us#" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id%3AWuHjnma...</a><p>Wow, I can share with Google buzz. /nostalgia
My first try, with a hockey-stick growth pattern starting 2007. Expected a match with "twitter," instead got "baby poop."<p><a href="http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id:iOj8ICadD9v&t=weekly&p=us" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id:iOj8ICadD...</a>
Spikes in 2008 and 2012: <a href="http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id:pBuWinPLvPW&t=weekly&p=us" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id:pBuWinPLv...</a>
This one made me laugh.<p><a href="http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id:bnqK1ZVJSUt&t=weekly&p=us#" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id:bnqK1ZVJS...</a>
Anyone know why "bruising" and "brown spots" are common in the summer? Not as nice as the canonical answer of "ice cream"...<p><a href="http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id:UfmYZwminh7&t=weekly&p=us" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id:UfmYZwmin...</a><p>In case you're wondering what's popular in winter: it's lots of diseases!
Very useful for looking up what people care about: <a href="http://i.imgur.com/puNZMco.png" rel="nofollow">http://i.imgur.com/puNZMco.png</a><p>1. (antidepressant drug)
2. "county jail"
3. "google"
4. "detention center"
5. (vinyl music database)
Apparently the internet was (comparatively) less funny between 2006 and 2012: <a href="http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id%3AO6yJxanOGz_&e=funny+photos&t=weekly&p=us" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id%3AO6yJxan...</a>
Peak in 2005 and than a linear decline: "Linux firefox". <a href="http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id%3AI9yHeUPqUAK&e=linux+firefox&t=weekly&p=us" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id%3AI9yHeUP...</a>
Power rangers dino thunder apparently made some kind of comeback.<p><a href="http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id%3AFlLikxMOjJe&e=power+rangers+dino+thunder&t=weekly&p=us" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id%3AFlLikxM...</a>
My first try got me "free Blackberry software"<p><a href="http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id%3AUbuw550lo6b&e=free+blackberry+software&t=weekly&p=us#" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id%3AUbuw550...</a>
I tried drawing a "hockey stick" graph and stopped too soon. Got wamu =).<p><a href="http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id:Bds44NUk_m3&t=weekly&p=us" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id:Bds44NUk_...</a><p>We miss you wamu!
Is the metric system cool now?
<a href="http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id%3AJrnBhwp5wJG&e=cm+inches&t=weekly&p=us" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id%3AJrnBhwp...</a>
Tried a downhill curve and I got yahoo.com <a href="http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id:IwiF_9hYUo3&t=weekly&p=ro" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id:IwiF_9hYU...</a>
Staircase growth then major drop = Yahoo<p><a href="http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id:g1F7bodygJJ&t=weekly&p=us" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id:g1F7bodyg...</a>
<a href="http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id:zmsMT3XqC01&t=weekly&p=us" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id:zmsMT3XqC...</a><p>ok, so porn links are allowed in this
what happened to htomail.com ? ;)
<a href="http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id%3AZYTVOj4sclQ&e=www.htomail.com&t=weekly&p=us" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id%3AZYTVOj4...</a><p>. . . . . . .<p>Pulled from a search farther down in the comments section: Why was this a question... ever?<p><a href="http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id%3ApBuWinPLvPW&e=what+is+the+difference+between+lcd+and+led&t=weekly&p=us" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id%3ApBuWinP...</a>
The whitepaper describes an approximate nearest neighbor algorithm, but I thought this would use some form of signal decomposition...Discrete Cosine Transform or Fourier Transform.
Thing I found most interesting about this is - it allows you to 'Share' your results on <i>Google Buzz</i>, <i>Google Reader</i> and, most shockingly, Facebook.
"Please sign in to use this tool." That's all I see when I am not signed in. Too confident on Google's part that the people will always be signed in or do they actually need any personal info to use this tool?