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Showing posts with label google news. Show all posts
Showing posts with label google news. Show all posts

And That's A Wrap, Folks. Here's What Mattered To You In 2013.






Here's how the world 'searched' in 2013, broken down by categories, courtesy of... Google, of course. These are based on search topics with the largest global search volume.

Trends:                    People:


Events:                    Athletes:


Consumer Electronics:  Hashtags:


Movies:                    Performing Artists:


TV Shows:                YouTube Videos:



And here's how the U.S. searched in the categories that really mattered:

Apparel:                   Beer:


Books:                     Blogs:


Cars:                       Dating Sites:


Deaths:                   Dogs:


Internet Animals:     High Fashion Brands:


Memes:                   Movies:


Popular Gifs:            Reality TV Stars:


Restaurants:            Shoes:


Songs:                    Sports:


Tech Gadgets:          Toys:


TV Shows:               Video Games:


What Is...:               Workouts/Exercise:


I hope your 2013 was everything you wanted it to be and that 2014 is even better. Happy New Year!





Visionary Raymond Loewy Honored In Google Doodle And A Look At Some Of His Greatest Designs.




Today’s Google Doodle honors what would have been the 120th birthday of French industrial designer Raymond Loewy (1893-1986). The Doodle, a pencil sketch, was inspired by the Pennsylvania Railroad's S1 steam locomotive he designed as you can clearly see the resemblance to Loewy's original sketch in the above image.



So what did Raymond Loewy actually design? Believe it or not, pretty much everything. From the world's best known brand logos, pencil sharpeners, clocks, kitchen appliances, coke bottles, coke dispensers and furniture to Planes, Trains and Automobiles (to steal a movie title), the Father of Industrial Design ”made products irresistible at a time when nobody really wanted to pay for anything,” TIME magazine once wrote.



His designs straddled the mid-century modern style and the streamlined art deco. Most recognizable amongst his achievements are the Shell and Exxon logos, the Lucky Strike cigarette packaging, GG1 and S1 locomotives, the slenderized Coca-Cola bottle, the John F. Kennedy memorial postage stamp, the interior of Saturn I, Saturn V, and Skylab, the Greyhound bus and logo, U.S. Postal Service emblem, a line of Frigidaire refrigerators, ranges, and freezers, and the Studebaker Avanti, Champion and Starliner.



above: just some of Loewy's logo designs

"Design, vitalized and simplified, will make the comforts of civilized life available to an ever-increasing number of Americans." -- Raymond Loewy

Some of his designs (shown with his beautiful sketches if possible):

Avanti:


Bottle and dispensers for Coca Cola:


Greyhound Bus and Logo Design:


Pencil sharpener, tea set, carpet and furniture by Loewy:


Lucky Strike logo and packaging:


USPS emblem and JFK memorial Stamp:



Here are just some of his career highlights:

1975 Smithsonian Institution opened The Designs of Raymond Loewy, a four-month exhibit dedicated to "the man who changed the face of industrial design."

1972 Poll of stylists representing the Big Three automakers voted his 1953 Studebaker Starliner Coupé an "industry best." Also named one of the most influential Americans by LIFE magazine.

1967 Began working as a habitability consultant to NASA.


1965 Joined the President's Committee on Employment of the Handicapped.

1962 After designing the Shell logo, it becomes such a recognizable icon that Shell drops its name from their advertisements.


1961 Designed the Studebaker Avanti, holding to the motto, "weight is the enemy."

1954 Designed the Greyhound bus.

1953 Designed the Studebaker Starliner Coupé, which the Museum of Modern Art later called a "work of art."

1952 Founded the Compagnie de I'Esthetique Industrielle in Paris, France.

1951 Published second design textbook, Industrial Design, and his autobiography Never Leave Well Enough Alone.

1949 Appeared on the cover of TIME magazine.


1939 Redesigned the Lucky Strike cigarette packaging.

1937 Published first book, The Locomotive: Its Aesthetics.

1936 Designed the GG-1 electric locomotive for the Pennsylvania Railroad.

1934 Designed the Coldspot refrigerator for Sears Roebuck & Company.


1930 Hired as a consultant by the Hupp Motor Company.

1929 Redesigned the Gestetner mimeograph machine. Founder and art director of Raymond Loewy, William Snaith, Inc., in New York City (later established as Raymond Loewy International).

1919 Provided popular fashion illustrations for magazines such as Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. Freelanced as a window designer for department stores, including Saks Fifth Avenue and Macy's.



In 1975 the Smithsonian Institution opened The Designs of Raymond Loewy, a four-month exhibit dedicated to "the man who changed the face of industrial design." Loewy later commented, "While working closely with the Smithsonian, I was provided with the opportunity to reassess the past." And what a past it was. Loewy - businessman, educator, illustrator and author - had undoubtedly established himself as one of history's most famous and influential designers.


above: Loewy with his design for Air Force 1

Loewy and Viola moved to France several years later, where they enjoyed leisurely travel and a more relaxed lifestyle. On July 14, 1986, after a period of poor health, Raymond Loewy died in Monte Carlo, Monaco. He was 92 years old.

Loewy's death sparked a worldwide media frenzy over his immeasurable talent and contributions to industrial design. New York Times reporter Susan Heller wrote, "One can hardly open a beer or a soft drink, fix breakfast, board a plane, buy gas, mail a letter or shop for an appliance without encountering a Loewy creation."

Official Raymond Loewy sites:
www.raymondloewy.com
www.RaymondLoewy.org
www.RaymondLoewyFoundation.com

The Evolution of Today's Women's Day Google Doodle By Betsy Bauer.



You may have noticed that today's Google Doodle is in honor of Women's Day, which frankly, I had no idea existed. So how did this fun Google Doodle come into being?

How The World Searched in 2012 and A Little Analysis of Google Search Trends For The Past Five Years.




I recently saw a recut of this video for a television ad that I really loved and tried to find to share with you, but sadly, I could not locate the 60 second version of this (which I actually preferred to the original video), so I figured I may as well share the entire 2 minute and 46 second version with you:



Music: "All I Want" by Kodaline, Video production by Whirled Creative

Mark Lee from the blog Overthinking It did a little data analysis of his own regarding the past five years of Google's Zeitgeist (their year-end round up of search trends on Google) that I'd like to share with you. I've reprinted his findings, complete with his hypotheses and commentary below.

His first step was to compile the last 5 years of Google Zeitgeist Top 10 Trending Search Terms and assign each item to a category:


A few things to keep in mind regarding these lists:

• These are lists of top trending Google search terms, not highest volume Google search terms. Google defines “trending” as “search queries with the highest amount of traffic over a sustained period in 2012 as compared to 2011.” (Emphasis is his.) Hence the “flash-in-a-pan” nature of the more derided results like Rebecca Black and Chatroulette.

• These lists reflect worldwide Google activity. Remember that Google’s share of the web search market is not as dominating in some parts of the world as it is in the United States; China being the most notable example.

• He used his own taxonomy based on his intuitive understanding of the different phenomena presented in the results. For example, rather than lump both Whitney Houston and Rebecca Black into the “music” category, he put Whitney Houston and Steve Jobs together in the “celebrity death” category.

• Although Google Zeitgeist goes back to 2001, Lee only went back 5 years, partly because it’s a nice round number, partly because there was no year-end roundup for 2006, and partly because he wanted to limit the amount that changing search habits and demographics could skew the results.

Here’s what the data looks like when you aggregate across the years, by category:


All fine and good, but what we really want to see is if there are any changes in search interests over the past five years:



So what do we make of this? Here are a few possible takeaways according to Lee:

• TV and movies are surprisingly underrepresented. The sole TV entry in the Top 10 over five years is Big Brother Brazil 12, and the sole movie entry is Twilight: New Moon.This is consistent with the idea that our media landscape is more diverse and less mass-market than it was in the pre-internet age. That being said, I’m still surprised that not even Avatar made the list, perhaps due to the year-over-year comparison calculation that powers these results.

• Searches for various social media sites has steadily declined since 2008. Is it because people are using social media less? Far from it, if Facebook and Twitter’s statistics are to believed. Instead, it’s probably due to two things: 1) the growth of social media is slowing as Facebook approaches near-total saturation and 2) the growth of social media web searches is slowing as more people access them using smart phone apps instead of a web browser.

• Sports cracked the Top 10 only twice, both in Summer Olympics years (the Euro 2008 soccer tournament also made the list). Why less love for the Winter Olympics? It may have something to do with the lack of beach volleyball (and exposed skin in general). Just a wild guess.

• Celebrity deaths are a reliable source of spikes in Google search activity, but 2010 had no such searches make the top 10 list. He perused several awful slideshows of 2010 celebrity deaths (so you don’t have to), and reports with some confidence that no one of the iconic stature of Steve Jobs, Whitney Houston, or Michael Jackson left us in 2010. Not that iconic stature is the only requirement for making this list; Ryan Dunn of Jackass fame seems to have qualified based on the alignment of the circumstances of his death and his daredevil image.


To Lee, the biggest surprise in this exercise was the tailing off of social media searches. As a reminder, it’s not because the total volume is declining; it’s because the year-over-year growth in searches isn’t enough to get these terms into the top 10. Still, if his theories are right–that social media is approaching full saturation and that the usage of it is moving towards mobile devices–then we do have a finding that approaches the idea of a “zeitgeist” in the traditional sense of the term: “the defining spirit or mood of a particular period of history as shown by the ideas and beliefs of the time.” Social media–this potentially radical revolution in how humans interact with each other–not only became a “new normal” over the past five years, but is also undergoing a radical shift from the stationary computer screen to the mobile, always-on-you device. And if this radical reinvention of the radical reinvention isn’t reflective of the zeitgeist, Lee claims he doesn't know what is.

One last thought on the nature of Google Zeitgeist itself: Lee wondered if he was imbuing it with outsized importance by assuming that the Google Zeitgeist is more of a part of the popular imagination (the zeitgeist, if you will) than it actually is. To find out he asked none other than Google:

Over the last five years, Google Zeitgeist has remained a popular year-end search term, though not with any consistent growth or shrinkage in popularity:



That being said, it’s still dwarfed by other popular search terms like “iPad” or “Michael Jackson.” Even “lolcats,” a niche but once-hugely popular internet meme, has towered over Google Zeitgeist over the past 5 years:



Granted, the gap has narrowed recently as searches for “lolcats” has declined while “Google Zeitgeist’ remains more or less consistent, but the point should be clear: the Google Zeitgeist itself is far from a cultural juggernaut compared to the items it contains. It’s not surprising, but it does provide some needed perspective on the matter.

About Lee
Mark Lee is, depending on the day and the hour, a management consultant, a musician, a technologist, and one of the managing editors for Overthinking It. He is a devoted fan of the Terminator movies and Microsoft Excel. Follow him on Twitter: @goestotwelve.

Countdown to Christmas Eve With Google's New Santa Tracker, Chrome App and Interactive Website.




For the past few years I have been writing posts about Norad's Santa Tracker (once a partner of Google's) and how it works as a nice online activity to enjoy with your children and friends. Now that Microsoft's Bing has partnered with Norad, Google has gone all out and created their own Google Maps' Santa Tracker and until it launches on Christmas Eve, you can explore a fun interactive animated site with plenty of games and goodies or download a Google Chrome app for added entertainment.




above: screen grabs of the Village briefing and windtunnel

Santa’s many developer elves, who are hard at work in the North Pole helping Santa prepare for his big day, have combined their elf magic with the latest and greatest in Google Maps technology and sleigh engineering to allow you to follow his progress around the world, and also learn a little about some of his stops along the way.


above: a sneak preview of the Google Santa Tracker which launches on Christmas Eve.

Even without using Google chrome as your browser, you can enjoy the following at the Google Santa Tracker Site:

•Create a Custom Phone Call from Santa in the form of an mp3 file you can send to your friends (This is really cool. It takes a few minutes to make the first one, but it's worth it.)



•You (or your kids) can play one of three games that operates with your keyboard.

Present Drop:


Village Racer:


Jetpack:


If you use Google Chrome, you can download the app and enjoy even more fun like a dashboard tracker, play around with Santa's blimp or elf bus and write messages on a frosty browser window.




•You can Follow Santa on Google+

The friendly elves have also invited you to explore Santa’s village while Santa gets ready for his journey. So go ahead and explore his village, you might just find some fun activities and meet some interesting elves.

The Google Maps Santa Tracker is created and developed by Google, with a little help from Santa’s elves. Need help or have another question? Visit their Help Center to learn more about Santa Tracker.

Related links:

Google Wishes Charles Addams A Happy 100th Birthday.






In celebration of what would be his 100th birthday, Google honors Charles Addams with a "horror" doodle. The American cartoonist was best known for his black humor and macabre characters. His first drawing in The New Yorker ran on February 6, 1932 (a sketch of a window washer), and his cartoons ran regularly in the magazine from 1938, when he drew the first instance of what came to be called the Addams Family, until his death. He was a freelancer throughout that time.


above: Charles Addams (aka Charles Samuel Addams)

Born 1912 in Westfield, New Jersey, he signed his cartoons as Chas Addams.

The Google logo shows some of his figures who became known as the "Addams Family"; Gomez Addams, Morticia Addams, Pugsley Addams, Wednesday Addams, Uncle Fester, Grandmama, Lurch, Thing and Cousin It. Addams' typically styled Victorian buildings were said to be an inspiration for both Alfred Hitchcock's ("Psycho") and Edward Hopper. He died on September 29, 1988.

Happy Birthday, Charles Addams.

music: "Scheming Weasel" by Kevin MacLeod

info courtesy of wikipedia, youtube and google.

How The World Searched Google in 2011




Each year's end, Google tallies up the most popular search terms in various categories and breaks them down by country.

Since my readership is global (only one third of my readers are actually in the United States), I'm sharing with you the top ten searches in Fastest Rising, Fastest Falling, Entertainment, Sports, Consumer Electronics, Food and Drink, Google Map searches, People and News from all over the globe.

See how your interests stack up against those of the rest of the world. Beware, Rebecca Black is number one in three categories!


Fastest Rising Search Terms:

1. rebecca black
2. google plus
3. ryan dunn
4. casey anthony
5. battlefield 3
6. iphone 5
7. adele
8. 東京 電力
9. steve jobs
10. ipad 2

Fastest Falling Search Terms:

1. myspace
2. hi5
3. mebo
4. nasza klasa
5. netlog
6. baidu
7. wer kennt wen
8. meinvz
9. hotmail correo
10. delta airlines

Fastest Rising in Entertainment:

1. rebecca black
2. ryan dunn dead
3. price tag lyrics
4. amy winehouse death
5. super bass lyrics
6. crazy stupid love
7. disney junior
8. kim kardashian wedding
9. the lazy song
10. rihanna man down

Fastest Rising in Sports:

1. mayweather vs ortiz
2. soccerstar
3. dan wheldon
4. ufc rio
5. marco simoncelli
6. troy davis
7. india vs england
8. なでしこ ジャパン
9. hope solo
10. pacquiao vs mosley

Fastest Rising in Consumer Electronics:

1. amazon kindle fire
2. iphone 4s
3. sidekick 4g
4. hp touchpad
5. spb shell 3d
6. ipad 2
7. htc sensation
8. samsung nexus prime
9. sony ngp
10. ipad 3

Fastest Rising in Food and Drink:

1. wendys
2. just eat
3. little caesars
4. chick fil a
5. allrecipes
6. 食べ ログ
7. jimmy johns
8. buffalo wild wings
9. popeyes
10. cupcakes

Fastest Rising in Google Maps:

1. utm (Universal Transverse Mercator)
2. siegessule berlin
3. dpt conforama
4. wells fargo
5. friseur
6. elementary schools
7. campgrounds
8. shopping centre
9. starbucks
10. lake


Fastest Rising in People:

1. rebecca black
2. ryan dunn
3. pippa middleton
4. casey anthony
5. adele
6. steve jobs
7. amy winehouse
8. osama bin laden
9. charlie sheen
10. kate middleton

Fastest Rising in Google News:


1. fukushima
2. iphone 4s
3. melania rea
4. salvatore parolisi
5. lamberto sposini
6. battlefield 3
7. dsk
8. iphone 5
9. gaddafi
10. libya

And a look back at 2011:

source

Google Wishes You Happy Holidays With An Interactive Animated Jingle Bells Light Show

animated jingle bells

 If you didn't check out the Google doodle today, it's a sweet interactive animated doodle that when all the buttons have been depressed, plays a little light show accompanied by an instrumental 'jingle bells' ditty.

Click on the glowing button beneath the G and it becomes a snowflake:

Click on the glowing button beneath the first O and it becomes Santa:

Click on the glowing button beneath the second O and it becomes a bell:

Click on the glowing button beneath the second G and it becomes a snowman:

Click on the glowing button beneath the L and it becomes a candle:

Click on the glowing button beneath the E and it becomes a present:

 According to Nathan Naze, Software Engineer at Google "Working with our doodlers, we had the bright idea to string lights along the Google homepage (and, because we can, added some interactive features). Of course, instead of using nails and hopelessly tangled strings of lights, we used JavaScript, Closure, and HTML5 or Flash to play the music (depending on the browser)."

 Here it is in its animated entirety:

 Happy Holidays back to you, Google!

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