People looking for what's hot on the web, can use Google Trends. Regarded as a part of journalistic storytelling, it gives insights into what people across the world search on Google.
Google Trends have been updated to meet those people better. Introducing some new features, simpler navigation and more, Trends wants to make things easier for users to explore data and stories around one of the "world’s biggest journalistic datasets,” said Google’s Gavri Smith on a blog post.
Many of the changes are based on feedback from Trends users.
First up, is the design. Google is putting more editorial data-based stories up front, and gives users the ability to create their own stories using Year in Search data, or by exploring the redesigned Trending searches and Explore pages.
Features included in this update:
- Redesigned Trending searches section, showing what is trending in search right now (daily and minute-by-minute).
- Redesigned section where users can see Google Trends data stories curated by the News Lab team.
- Easy access to Year in Search, which has data going back to 2001.
- New infographic types such as an intensity map.
The updated design and new feature aren't removing some of the old features. Google kept the real-time (minute-by-minute) feeds and daily Trends pages, as well as the Explore page, where users can search for anything they want.
"We’re already working with journalists closely across emerging technologies as part of the Google News Initiative, partnering on innovative projects and building new tools for data journalism," continued Smith.
"We think these changes to Google Trends will be really valuable, but journalist feedback is important in ensuring that we continue to create features that work for the industry."