[Taxacom] Google Trends

[Jim Croft]

yeah, but you have to admit, it is still pretty cool to be able to
compare apples with oranges:
http://google.com/trends?q=apples%2C+oranges
even though they are as different as cheese and chalk:
http://google.com/trends?q=cheese%2C+chalk   :)

Anyway, better get back to work...

Does anyone know of any interactive keys (Delta, Lucid, Navikey,
whatever)  to mangrove species (plants, animals, fungi. whatever) from
any region?

A quick web search revealed surprisingly not very much - a reference
to one on fungi and not much else....

jim

On Sat, May 17, 2008 at 3:57 PM, Mike Dallwitz
<m.j.dallwitz at netspeed.com.au> wrote:
> Jim Croft wrote:
>
>> The problem with these trend graphs is that it is very likely that they
>> have been 'normalized' in some way, but just how is totally opaque.
>
>  From http://www.google.com/intl/en/trends/about.html:
>
> "Essentially, all results from Google Trends are normalized. This means
> we've divided the sets of data by a common variable to cancel out the
> variable's effect on the data and allow the underlying characteristics of
> the data sets to be compared."
>
> "[The Search Volume shows] how many searches have been done for the terms
> you enter, relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time."
>
>> I figured Yule stuff was responsible for the sharp December/January dips,
>> and had guessed at the summer holiday depression while people were outside
>> doing real things.
>>
>> [Do the trends provide evidence of] deliberate policy antagonistic to
>> biodiversity?
>
> In general, you can't draw conclusions about attitudes or behaviour from
> Google Trends, because (1) only _searches_ (and news articles) are analysed,
> and (2) the sample presumably has biases which change in the short and long
> terms.
>
> For example, some 'frivolous' queries (e.g. 'movies') have sharp peaks at
> Christmas, and broad peaks during the northern summer - the opposite to
> 'serious' queries (e.g. 'biodiversity'). This tells us nothing about whether
> "people were outside doing real things". Perhaps people made twice as many
> queries about 'biodiversity' during these periods, but four times as many
> about 'movies'.
>
> Long-term trends may be influenced by demographic trends in Web use. Perhaps
> policy makers are making _more_ queries about 'biodiversity', but this is
> being swamped by queries about 'movies' by increasing numbers of children
> who are using the Web.
>
> Or perhaps there is an increase in interest in biodiversity, but people are
> now so involved with it that they make more queries on particular
> biodiversity topics, rather than queries on the word itself.
>
>  From http://www.google.com/intl/en/trends/about.html:
>
> "Keep in mind that instead of measuring overall interest in a topic, Google
> Trends shows users' propensity to search for that topic on Google on a
> relative basis. For example, just because a particular region isn't on the
> Top Regions list for the term "haircut" doesn't necessarily mean that people
> there have decided to stage a mass rebellion against society's conventions.
> It could be that people in that region might not use Google to find a
> barber, use a different term when doing their searches, or simply search for
> so many other topics unrelated to haircuts that searches for "haircut" make
> up a very small portion of the search volume from that region when compared
> to other regions."
>
> --
> Mike Dallwitz
> Contact information: http://delta-intkey.com/contact/dallwitz.htm
> DELTA home page: http://delta-intkey.com
>
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>



-- 
_________________
Jim Croft
jim.croft at gmail.com

"I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in
order to enjoy ourselves."
- Ludwig Wittgenstein, philosopher (1889-1951)