Google trends snapshot — US vs. Japan

Here is the lost of top 40 hot searches in Google’s new Japanese-language Google Trends. 17 are for celebrities, all Japanese except for Prince Charles, who is in Japan to visit the imperial family, among other things. Also a bunch about financial services.

Across the Pacific, the US hot searches included just 8 queries looking for info on celebrities, (including Obama, the biggest celebrity in the world). Lots of queries for specific movies practical services, or specific web memes like the “la times obama video” or the “live your life video”.

My armchair conclusions? Thanks for asking! I realize that these lists are hardly a robust look at what people search for in general, but I think this just underscores the huge role celebrity-obsession plays in driving Internet traffic in Japan, while the US is all about funny videos and piracy. Celebrity blogs are a major reason to be on the Internet these days, to the point that J-Cast news maintains a running feature covering some of the quirkier entries.

Lists after the fold.


たりないもの占い
草野徹
グラコロ
神田高校
八切止夫
高橋尚子
いとうかなこ
田代まさし
小朝
つるの剛士
泰葉
Dream Fighter
ブタがいた教室
ドラフト
ムーミン
北川景子
スカイマーク
DODA
山下莉奈
DJ KAORI
大和証券
為替
BANDAGE
チャールズ皇太子
円相場
大和田夏希
横浜中華街
波乗りレストラン
ミルキーウェイ
10月29日
赤西仁 映画
キングコング
東京国立博物館
ストームシェイパー
カブドットコム
統合失調症
オートバックス
早稲田大学
川嶋あい
山田まりや

1. barf
2. sarah lawrence college
3. fractal geometry
4. charlie brown characters
5. comcast.net
6. james woods
7. sweating blood
8. citation machine
9. julianne hough surgery
10. mediterranean fever
11. comcast.net sign in
12. comcast email
13. baseball world series 2008
14. house trade
15. peanuts characters
16. great pumpkin charlie brown
17. comcast webmail
18. www.comcast.net
19. fractal antenna
20. gloria swanson
21. joan holloway
22. live your life video
23. the omen
24. michael flatley
25. chicago bulls
26. la times obama video
27. rate my professor
28. fallout 3 walkthrough
29. jeepers creepers
30. the ropers
31. trisomy 18
32. bleach 192 english sub
33. fringe tv show
34. you re not sorry lyrics
35. mandelbrot set
36. gina philips
37. cleveland cavaliers
38. fractal generator
39. christine beatty
40. 99 balloons

5 thoughts on “Google trends snapshot — US vs. Japan”

  1. Why am I wasting my time on other people’s blog in the middle of working hours,I dont’ know.
    But I do know writer/pseudo-historiographer,Yagiri Tomeo八切止夫 is not exactly a house-hold name in Japan,yet it is in the No.4 on J-Google search.
    http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%85%AB%E5%88%87%E6%AD%A2%E5%A4%AB

    The price of Yagiri’s out-of-print works are currently on the rise in second-hand book bookshops in Kanda.

    Now back to work…..

  2. Just to emphasize, these are “hot” searches, not the most popular (or else it would all be porn links). So these are terms that have seen a rapid increase in search frequency over some specified period. So yeah, interest is apparently growing in that guy (oops I counted him as a celebrity)

  3. And 4 of the English ones are apparently from people who can’t figure out how to use Comcast webmail…

Comments are closed.