Did you know the careers of Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga were linked? Take a look at Google Trends for clear empirical evidence:

If you look closely you will see that the Google search pattern for Justin is eerily similar to that of Lady Gaga – but delayed a year. Is it really a stretch to assume that Ms. Gaga acted as some sort of mentor to the young man as his career was launched? 😉

I really enjoy Google Trends – if you haven’t in a while go to the site and check out what is trending. Find out what is hot and predict the future!

From the trending pattern at left I am a bit concerned about the Future for Drake. Googling of the Canadian rapper seems to be forming a classic “head and shoulders” pattern. If true, this could indicate that he will soon passed by namesake Sir Francis.

Actually my favorite performers, the Stones and Zeppelin, were pre-Google (pre-Web and pre-email for that matter). So I use Google Trends to evaluate what is happening in other passions, such as social media.

The chart at left shows that searches for the term “Content Marketing” passed eMarketing in late 2012 and is clearly the dominant term by search.

The favorite new social sites of my 2013-14 undergraduate students were Snapchat, Tinder and Yik Yak. According to a Google Trend chart at left, Yik Yak has not taken off but the other two have.

Google Trends is being testing or used in a number of models predicting

1. economic conditions,
2. stock prices, and
3. technology trends.

Care is cautioned though: after a report out of Princeton University used Google Trends to predict that Facebook would lose 80% of its user base by 2017, a researcher at Facebook used the same methods in a report:

Facebook Predicts Princeton Won’t Exist In 2021

How do YOU use Google Trends??