I had an idea of using Google Insights to try and see what events cause more search popularity for something. With a view to seeing how much popularity a public figure can get from media attention.

Alan Dawrst and Brian Tomasik arn't famous enough (yet) and David Pearce shares his name with some other people but Oscar Horta works good !

The first time I searched I got the first image (below), then a few minutes later, the second one and then a few minutes after that a third one!




Both without any spikes before them!

Maybe it's this?;

Why do the values sometimes appear to change, depending on when I view the data?

The values for your query may not have been available or finalized at the time you were viewing them; you may have been viewing partial data. Our system incorporates data as it becomes available, which is why the values may appear to change depending on when you viewed them (for example, the last day of the month versus the first day of the next month).

The first thing to know is that all the values all relative to the highest value on the graph. The month with the highest search volume is "100" on the graph and then everything has a value relative to that.

By googling around (putting in the dates and Oscar Horta or using the "more search tools" on the left down the page) I think maybe these are the reasons for some of the spikes;

The first spike is January 2008, when Oscar won the Ferrater Mora Prize

I think maybe the one in 2009 could have been this

From 2010 on there is consistent activity, it seems like maybe the first 2011 spike is due to ARZone

And I think maybe the very last spike is Critical Perspectives on Animals in Society

But maybe the most interesting thing was when I searched antispeciesism; nothing.

But if you search speciesism! (speciesism is in blue, Oscar Horta is red line)


Speciesism by Joan Dunayer seems to have come out in October 2004, but that doesn't explain the first spike (April)

And a bit more soberingly... Dark green line in the second image is deep ecology...


So among all the other questions there's still the one I had in the first place, how might one quantify the gains in awareness from media exposure? Does anyone know how one might go about this?

And most importantly, who to stalk next...

I had an idea of using Google Insights to try and see what events cause more search popularity for something. With a view to seeing how much popularity a public figure can get from media attention.

Alan Dawrst and Brian Tomasik arn't famous enough (yet) and David Pearce shares his name with some other people but Oscar Horta works good !

The first time I searched I got the first image (below), then a few minutes later, the second one and then a few minutes after that a third one!




Both without any spikes before them!

Maybe it's this?;

Why do the values sometimes appear to change, depending on when I view the data?

The values for your query may not have been available or finalized at the time you were viewing them; you may have been viewing partial data. Our system incorporates data as it becomes available, which is why the values may appear to change depending on when you viewed them (for example, the last day of the month versus the first day of the next month).

The first thing to know is that all the values all relative to the highest value on the graph. The month with the highest search volume is "100" on the graph and then everything has a value relative to that.

By googling around (putting in the dates and Oscar Horta or using the "more search tools" on the left down the page) I think maybe these are the reasons for some of the spikes;

The first spike is January 2008, when Oscar won the Ferrater Mora Prize

I think maybe the one in 2009 could have been this

From 2010 on there is consistent activity, it seems like maybe the first 2011 spike is due to ARZone

And I think maybe the very last spike is Critical Perspectives on Animals in Society

But maybe the most interesting thing was when I searched antispeciesism; nothing.

But if you search speciesism! (speciesism is in blue, Oscar Horta is red line)


Speciesism by Joan Dunayer seems to have come out in October 2004, but that doesn't explain the first spike (April)

And a bit more soberingly... Dark green line in the second image is deep ecology...


So among all the other questions there's still the one I had in the first place, how might one quantify the gains in awareness from media exposure? Does anyone know how one might go about this?

And most importantly, who to stalk next...