Here is an interesting link to one of Googles new analytical tools that show outlines the interest in Model Railroads.
http://www.google.com/trends?q=model+railroad
I like the list of top 10 cities:
Pittsburgh United States
Minneapolis United States
Rochester United States
Denver United States
Philadelphia United States
Cincinnati United States
St Louis United States
Portland United States
Chicago United States
Boston United States
The top ten cities of what? Population? Model railroaders? What?
Bob Boudreau
Looks like it’s statistics on the number of searches performed.
http://www.google.com/trends/about.html#4
Looking at their explanation, this may favor very small locations. As a test, I typed in “wombat” and the top of the list is someplace called Allison Park, USA, which I’ve never even heard of. This could happen if, for some reason, every kid in the 5th grade at Allison Park Elementary School had to do a report on wombats.
For the model railroad example, having a place as large as Pittsburgh at the top says that the statistics are probably valid.
So this means that the people of Pittsburgh are the most inept at MRR and have to search google for answers more than anyone else?
Interesting…
It’s interesting that each year shows a gradual buildup of searches starting about in October, peaking right about December 25th, and then rapidly falling off again. And, as many people have commented, the summer in the Northern Hemisphere seems to be a slack time.
Not sure how they are grouping the cities though. Last time I did a Google search, it didn’t ask me where I was from. I suspect it is grouping from the region where the ISP is located, that is, since Pittsburgh would have most of the ISP servers for western PA and eastern OH, that may be why they get listed number one.
Rick
Yeah, sure. Blame it all on Spacemouse.
Seriously, I suppose I’m part of the “Boston” contingent. On the other hand, they identified the tiny hamlet of “Allison Park.”