[ale] Google Trends

[Michael B. Trausch]

On Thu, 2007-01-04 at 22:36 -0500, Jim Popovitch wrote:

> Question:
> 
> Based on data shown on the URL below, what are your thoughts on what it
> means?
> 
> http://www.google.com/trends?q=fedora,ubuntu,suse,redhat,novell


I have to say that this is rather interesting.  I am not sure exactly
what to think about it, though.  It could be any number of things, but
by the looks of it, I would say that Ubuntu would appear to be the most
popular distribution of Linux based solely on the search results listed
in Trends.  Based on the numbers from DistroWatch, though, it would
appear that the same is true, and that this could be more than mere
coincidence.  I know that when people ask me about Linux, I mention
Ubuntu, though I have recently found something called Linux Mint that is
Ubuntu with some of the miscellaneous things pre-configured for the user
(like an "Open Terminal Here" thing, actually working easy to use WiFi
support, and a few other enhancements along with a newer
OpenOffice.org).

Whether or not people are searching for things that have to do with
problem troubles or not, that would be the question.  I would wager to
guess that people looking for support for Ubuntu would probably search
for something along the lines of "Ubuntu forum" or "Ubuntu forums," but
those searches are quite unpopular as opposed to the word Ubuntu itself.
It could simply be evidence of people typing "ubuntu" in Google to get
to the Ubuntu web site, using Google as some sort of portable bookmark
device, as well.  It works for many web sites; I know that I have used
Google for that in the past myself, in part because typing "C-k Linux
Mint RET" is faster than typing http://lt.k1011.nutime.de/ in the
browser bar.

    -- Mike

--
Michael B. Trausch
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