One of the little known Google tools is the Google Trends.  Surprisingly rich amount of information can be derived using this tool.

Google Trends shows the relative volume of keyword search in Google Search. You can provide a list of keywords separated by comma and then see comparative search volume over a period of time.

I started my post saying that Google Trends can give you amazing level of insight. Combined with regional information, it can give insight into social aspects of human life as well!

In my experiment, I used these keywords - peace,love,life,kindness,sex. Anyone can guess which is going to be the most searched term. There is no surprise there. Here is the Google Trends chart,

Now I did a comparison of search volume across United States and India. Here are the search volume graphs,

Noticed the huge difference? What is your conclusion? I have no comments!

Lastly I did a search for sex for all the regions. Here is the top 10 regions.

From this study, I derive the following formula,

Sex Interest = Sex Suppression * Population * Sex Co-efficient where Sex co-efficient is a universal constant. When Google gives out the actual volume figures, we will know this constant!

I wanted to create a poll on this blog and then I realized that there is no such thing as a perfect poll! The main problem is, how do you prevent bogus or duplicate votes?

Many existing polling systems use IP address to identify duplicate votes. But this eliminates a lot of valid votes! For example, 1000+ employees at my office use the same proxy server and hence to the polling system will appear as a single voter!

Also different IP addresses can never guarantee perfect polls. Methods used for internet anonymity such as Tor can be misused for bogus voting.

Other methods used are the cookie method and the email verification method. Both these are not fraud proof. Cookies can be easily deleted and multiple email ids can be easily created.

What we need is an internet identity which probably links to something like a passport number!

During my search for a perfect polling system, I came across this link. It claims to build a fraud proof voting system. But in reality it is probably the worst voting system!