At the time, I advised against panic (I've been known to cite Google Trends myself, such as
here and
here), even though he was completely correct in his observation of the Google trends. These are shown in the two graphics below, along with "bicycle" for comparison
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US Google Trends for bicycle and cycling. Bicycle now sits at 33% of its Peak |
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Things Look EVEN WORSE in Texas, Where Bicycle has dropped to 25% of its Peak |
Things certainly look dark for those of us that frequently use human-powered two wheeled vehicles for transport. However, things are not always as bleak as they first appear. To check things out a little more thoroughly, I tried a couple of similar, but different search terms, adding "Bicycle" as a topic rather than a search term, and also "bike" as a comparitive search term. THAT shows a rather different story
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Searching for the Term "Bike" Suggests Searches are 76% of the Peak |
I checked further, Looking at my old post, I decided to see how the term "vampire" has fared over time, since it was more popular than "cyclist" back when I posted
here. Well, instead of cyclist and vampire in Texas as I used then, I used bike and vampire in Texas. The results are shown below:
As you may note, the term "bike" is still sitting at 69% of its peak, while interest in "vampire" has dropped to 29% of its peak. My point? I think panic is premature and we'd be wise to not get too thrilled with cycling-related results from Google Trends.
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Vampires Seem to be Disappearing from Texas! |
2 comments:
The vampires all went to DC to get appointee positions. Cycling continues to wobble along in its many "categories," with smokeless mopeds charging up the statistical charts along with cliff jumpers, path plodders and gravel snobs.
I suspect we've all got various theories about cycling - and vampires. Don't forget that Ocean Shores is just down the coast from Forks of Twilight fame! September 13th (Bella's Birthday) is a major holiday around here, even including guided tours of Forks High School.
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No Need for Non-Robot proof here!