After the Lakers won the NBA championship last night, fans did as fans often do – they rioted. A Google news search can give you the low down. The question is, what was going on in the hours before the game ended? Were fans using the internet looking for information about where to go for a little after-game ‘fun’?
Take a look at the Google Hot Trends graph for ‘lakers riot’ and similar terms and tell me what you see. (Google Hot Trends measures unusual – that is, statistically significant – spikes in interest for a search term. The link is for June 14, 2009. The graph to the right was from about 10 a.m. EDT today.)
Here are my thoughts.
The game began about 5 p.m. PDT. Notice that there was almost no interest until about 7 p.m. That was a couple hours into the game – but before the game ended. There was a fairly sharp increase between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. And then by an hour later it was on its way to the stratosphere. The interest peaked at 10 o’clock.
Does this mean that before the game ended people were already on the Internet looking for information about the after-game riots? What were they looking for? News? Or where to go to join the party?
Maybe the 2,000 fans who poured into the streets of East L.A. last Thursday to celebrate the Lakers’ Game 4 win needed directions to where the party was Sunday night.
Your thoughts? Is there a more logical explanation for the interest in riots before the game ended? Or am I just missing something really big here?
Tomorrow I’ll talk about Google Hot Trends in more detail, but this graph was just too much to pass up.
Sphere: Related ContentRelated articles from WalterBristow.com:
- Just-in-Time Mind Reading with Google Hot Trends
- Does Google Have a Crystal Ball That Lets You Predict the Future?
- Keeping Track of Yourself on the Internet – The Starting Point of Personal Branding
- This Article (Email, Facebook Update, or Whatever) Will Automatically Self-Destruct
- Are You Drowning in the Information Glut of the Internet Ocean? Here’s a Life Preserver.
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