Google trends is a nifty Google tool that pulls analytics out of their gargantuan repository of search statistics. I thought it would be fun to run a comparison of searches between South Africa’s 4 presidents (well, one future president at least): Mandela, Mbeki, Motlanthe and Zuma. I have pegged the results to the average worlwide traffic generated by Mandela.
This is certainly not an indication of popularity, but it is an indication of general developmental-to-first-world interest (or at least the part of the world with internet connections).
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The top half of the chart represents end-user keyword searches and the bottom half represents news references.
To no surprise, Jacob Zuma has generated far and away the most interest. I did find it intriguing that he has been generating more interest than Nelson Mandela. Mandela has trailed behind by almost 100%, barring his 90th birthday (indicated by the big blue spike).
The interest generated by Mbeki and Motlanthe pales into insignificance as ranked against Zuma (probably largely driven by negative interest) and Mandela (undoubtedly driven by positive interest).
The trends are very unscientific because not all searches for Zuma were meant for “Jacob Zuma”. Some would be for footballer Sibusiso Zuma and some would be for our Minister of Foreign Affairs "Nkosazama Zuma”. Still, I think it’s more accurate than the results you get if you include first names.
Try some trends for yourself at www.google.com/trends
Steve,
I am not going to fall out over this but why didn't you include the Blacklisted Dictator in your google searches? Is it because I am currently not top honcho at The ANC??
May I alert you to the fact that The Gorillamovement is poised to take over. Political parties come and go, but gorillas have been around for millions of years and have impressive DNA.
Posted by: BLACKLISTED DICTATOR/GORILLAMOVEMENT | October 06, 2008 at 16:53