The new Apple Watch is as interesting as a new iPod today
What significance does such trend data hold? A look at Apple products over the past ten years offers a good example. Google Trends shows how the iPhone, with its second edition, replaced the iPod as the most popular product in the year 2008 and remains the biggest source of revenue. It illustrates the rise of the iPad starting in 2010 and its subsequent fall, which began on Google Trends in 2013 and could been seen in the sales a short time later as well. And it also shows that the introduction of the Apple Watch has been the least successful launch of a new Apple product in the last ten years. According to the trend data, it is currently as popular as an iPod – despite a good deal of comprehensive media coverage about the watch.
The example likewise manifests its limited possibilities of interpretations. The current iPhones, for instance, were bought over 40% more often in the last Christmas season compared to the same quarter of the previous year. However, it has remained stable on Google Search. A slight downward trend has been in place from 2012 until now. Events - such as Apple's Keynotes for products - have unsurprisingly increased the trend index, even without any product being sold at the time.
* Note on the data from Google Trends:
Google Trends analyzes the absolute search volume for a certain term and compares it with all other search terms at a fixed point in time at a fixed place. Through a comparison between countries and cities, these differences will once again be put into perspective with one another and their results will be presented in a ranked list. Google Trends doesn't show any absolute figures, but relative figures only.
The simultaneous normalisation of the data simplifies a relationship between search terms, as well as between fixed places and times. The figure '100' is always the highest value that can be reached in Google's Search Index. Other output values stand in relation to this highest value, and the trend curve is thus visualised. Search queries with low search volumes don’t appear. Likewise, Google Trends removes doubled search queries from the same user within a short timeframe. You can find more information here. Users search for a term on Wikipedia, most often, to learn about something. At Google, meanwhile, they are looking for something more often.
** Note on the data from Wikipedia:
The data shows page views from individual article pages from Wikipedia for each language version. You can find more information here, here, and here. Not all page views could possibly be recorded from each point in time. Such “knock-outs” influence a relative comparison less, because they affect the entire encyclopaedia. Wikipedia is also sporadically or purposefully censored in a few countries (Google as well). Individual articles could reach higher request figures than in an average month due to news or edit wars. Google’s Knowledge Graph, now displays a preview of the Wikipedia content when searching for term without visiting Wikipedia. This change could be held responsible for the falling requests on Wikipedia articles. Google did not introduce this service in all languagesat the same time. Page views do not match the user figures, however, that counts for all articles when comparing their requests.
*** Language versions on Wikipedia:
Not all language versions use 'Coworking' as an article name. Some use a non-English term and/or convert 'Coworking' into another writing system. You can find them in the picture gallery of this article.
**** The English-speaking version of Wikipedia...
about “coworking” comes in last place (0.00007%) in a relative comparison of page views in relation to other articles in the other language versions. The English-speaking Wikipedia also offers, however, the greatest range of articles.
