zeit·geist | Pronunciation: 'tsIt-"gIst, 'zIt | Function: noun | Etymology: German, from Zeit (time) + Geist (spirit) | Date: 1884 | Meaning: the general intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of an era.
Zeitgeist is a service provided by Google, where it ranks the most searched for terms on a given period of time. But what can we learn from it? According to the author John Battelle a lot.
On his thesis "The database of intentions" I quote: ".. the aggregate results of every search ever entered, every result list ever tendered, and every path taken as a result... this information represents, in aggregate form, a place holder for the intentions of humankind - a massive database of desires, needs, wants, and likes that can be discovered, supoenaed, archived, tracked, and exploited to all sorts of ends. Such a beast has never before existed in the history of culture, but is almost guaranteed to grow exponentially from this day forward. This artifact can tell us extraordinary things about who we are and what we want as a culture..."
Browsing through the available data, one can definitely understand what he is referring to. Like reading an old newspaper, by opening historical data, it becomes clear what was fashionable (or not) in any period of time
This is an issue that I definitely plan to re visit, as it fascinates me tremendously and I do believe that is still a lot to be learned about and from it.
For now, I am posting the link of this service and wishing everyone to visit, explore and conclude how much these simple rankings define who we are
http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist_monthly.html
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