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Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Google Fun
Back in the ancient days of the Moretti book event I spent alot of time googling “xanadu” and related searchs by way of investigating the xanadu meme. It was nudgy work, but also fun.
I’ve just discovered some more fun things to do with Google. I assume that these have been around for awhile and that many of you know about them. For those who don’t, here’s a few words.
When you’re on the Google search page you’ll see a Show options link at the upper left, below the Google logo. Click on in and you’ll get a column of options listed down the lefthand side. The one’s that interest me are Wonder wheel and Timeline.
When you click on Wonder wheel the display changes so you see a hub-and-spokes arrangement with your search term at the hub and associated searchs at the ends of the spokes. If you click on one of the spokes, that search becomes the hub and has its own array of spokes (which your original search at the end of one of them). You can then click on one of those spokes and . . . you get the idea.
Timeline gives you as bar graph moving from the past at the left to the present at the right. The height of the bar is proportional to the number of times your search term is associated with that date range. Just what that association means is something you have to determine by inspection, though often enough it does mean that your term has appeared in a document written at that time.
The bar graph itself is clickable. When you click on a date range, you get a new bar graph spanning just that range. You can keep going until you’re looking at single years.
I assume one can use these features in service of serious work, though I’ve not tried it yet. I’ve mostly been having fun.