I highly recommend playing with Google Trends, one of Google Labs latest projects. Simply type in a word and it will show you a graph of that particular search term over time. You can even do comparisons between subjects to compare search traffic; this is where the fun begins. Here are some that I checked out.

Comparison Searches

• War vs. Peace vs. War and Peace – Take a guess at this result.
• RIAA vs. Grandmas – No one is safe, not even those that don’t own computers .
• South Dakota vs. North Dakota – or maybe it should read “South Dakota vs. Dakota“…
• Katrina vs. Tsunami – I actually expected the opposite from this one.
• Apples vs. Oranges – I guess you really can’t compare..
• George Bush vs Iraq – No comment.
• Intelligent Design vs. Flying Spaghetti Monster – Watch out for the noodly appendage.
• Emo vs. Emu – It’s good to see that the emu’s are still standing strong.

Single Searches

• Solar Eclipse – This one is interesting, the same thing works for holidays and other events.
• Snowboarding – Just look at those slopes.