Ethan Zuckerman queries Overture to learn which terms our aggregated searches tells us we associate with particular localities. Snippet:

What do web users think about Brazil? That’s an easy one: we want to visit, and we’d like to see some naked women. (No word on whether that’s why we want to visit.) The top 20 search terms associated with “Brazil” include “travel”, “tour”, “hotel”, “vacation”, “carnival”, “visa” and “beaches”… and also “girl”, “woman”, “sex”, “porn”, as well as “Mike”, who appears to be visiting Brazilian beaches with a camera, meeting lots of naked women.

The Canadians, on the other hand, can keep their clothes on. We want their drugs – “pharmacy” and “drug” both rank in the top five search terms – and we’re thinking about moving there. “canada immigration” is the 12th associated search term, followed closely by “jobs in canada”. (The keyword selector tool offers some help there as well – if you can’t get a job in a Canadian pharmacy, consider Sears or Wal Mart, both of which rank in the top 20 associated search terms. (The Overture data set is updated monthly, so these results reflect October searches – I look forward to seeing how these figures change in November.)

Pretty durn fascinating.

Categories: misc dw