Google Searching is News

I just added Google’s “Hot Trends” box to my iGoogle page. I’ve been interested in this kind of information since I first saw the Google Zeitgeist come out a few years ago, and the series of Current TV clips called Google Current. I haven’t seen other search engines providing this kind of info, (please leave a comment if you have). It’s an interesting way to monitor the environment. Usually expected types of terms come up, things that are in the news (hard news and quite a bit of entertainment news), but often enough there is something slightly unexpected, or at least interesting to investigate since there’s always some reason behind the trend. Today I clicked on “amantadine” and the two top news stories were about the fact that amantadine was a top Google search after last night’s “House” episode aired on TV. This certainly promotes the “rich get richer,” but I can also see the appeal of reporting on trends.