Internet search services provider Google, Inc., US, has announced the launch of Google Correlate, an experimental new tool on Google Labs. The new product reportedly looks at search trends, and attempts to apply them to real-world situations.
Google Correlate enables users to find queries with a similar pattern to a target data series. The target can be a real-world trend that provided by the user or a query that a user enters. It uses search activity data to find queries with a similar pattern to a target data series - the results of which can be viewed on the Google Correlate site.
According to Google, the time series data can be used to find things - such as what search terms are more popular in the winter, more likely to be issued in 2005, match the pattern of actual flu activity, etc. The state data can be used for things like what terms correlate with the state's latitude, the annual rainfall in the state, being in New England, etc.
The Google Labs experiment has its own Labs section, which so far only consists of one thing: search by drawing. The user can simply draw a pattern on the graph, and it will give him/her web search activity that closely matches the pattern drawn.
Data for Google Correlate is available from January 2003 to the present, with data being updated on a weekly basis, according to the company.
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