Wed 25 Apr 2007
Google Trends provides some insight into broad search patterns on the Internet: how often certain topics have been searched for and which geographic regions have searched for them most often.
I gave it a try with two new technology buzz words…
The top ten regions for the search term “Business Process Management” were:
- South Africa
- India
- Singapore
- Pakistan
- South Korea
- Hong Kong
- Iran
- Malaysia
- Colombia
- Indonesia
The top regions for the search term “Service Oriented Architecture” were pretty much the same:
- India
- Singapore
- Pakistan
- South Africa
- Hong Kong
- Malaysia
- Ireland
- New Zealand
- Australia
- South Korea
The ranking is normalized and reflects users’ propensity to search for the given topic on Google on a relative basis. Although the results do not directly measure overall interest in a topic, the geographic distibution is striking: growing economies, mostly from Asia top the list.
What does this tell us?
Perhaps about the decline of Western Civilization to some extent: it is something else that is searched for on the Internet. But it may also imply that these growing economies are taking shortcuts in technology. Without the burden of infrastructural legacy, the companies are able to invest ouright to the new technology and build their enterprise architecture from the ground up. The trend may now very well be their friend.
(I was wondering, why “SOA” was so popular search term in the Netherlands, until I figured out that it also stands for “seksueel overdraagbare aandoeningen”, sexually transmitted diseases.)
db6