Showing posts with label google. Show all posts
Showing posts with label google. Show all posts

Friday, July 15, 2011

The challenge of Google+ and entering my circle of trust

I recently signed up for Google+ and in typical Google style its somewhat spartan in style and instruction on how to use it.  I'm slowly stumbling around trying to figure the system out.

There are some improvements over Facebook in my opinion, most specifically the 'circle' system where you can place individuals in multiple different groups so as to filter and direct your comments, pictures and information to specific groups.

Even if Google+ is 'superior', will it eventually exceed Facebook in popularity?  Not necessarily.  Part of the challenge Google+ faces is the size of their network is MUCH smaller than Facebook's (which is currently over 750 million people!) Network size is very critical as a social network with very few 'nodes' provides a much lower utility even if it's 'better'  [See Metcalfe's law]  Google+'s strategy of slowly rolling out the system via invites from current members mitigates this problem as people are automatically creating more connected 'nodes' in the network instead of random additions you don't personally know.

Right now my plan is to use Google+ as a social media outpost/gateway for my twitter and virtual friends versus Facebook for my 'in the flesh'  friends.  It will be curious to see how the two competing social media platforms evolve.



Many thanks to downtown Josh Brown for being the first person to put me in one of his circles.  Hopefully I'm not in the deranged fanboy category but in the circle of trust...

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Tool for finding people in Japan via Google

Google has a service for people looking those lost or missing in Japan. The url is:
http://japan.person-finder.appspot.com/?lang=en
They currently have over 250 thousand records. One word of caution however, some cruel people are posting entries stating some people have died and these entries are entirely false so while I don't want to encourage false hope be cautious of such entries.
From metro.uk

One family were crushed when a message posted on the Google people finder by Lucas. A said that Brian Hickebottom had died in the disaster. However, it emerged that the information was wrong, and he had found refuge in the school where he and his wife work, much to his relatives' relief . . . Responding to a post about US marine Justan Browning, which said he had died when a building collapsed, someone going by the name Canadian Friend wrote: 'I have seen several false reports that people are deceased. It is disgusting. Do not give up hope. Call your government to verify the above report.'

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Unemployment claims and Google trends continue to diverge

One of my topics (and headscratchers) recently has been the disparity between the Google Trends unemployment data and initial unemployment claims data from the government.  While both of them are trending upwards the difference between the two data series grows. 

Here's a few possible reasons why:

  • The Google Trends data changes. A lot.  As I update my data series I have noticed the entire set has changed (all the way back to 2005!) up to 10%  Comparing the older and newer data series gives you the same shape of the graph for year over year purposes but seeing data change that much is perplexing.  I've emailed Google about this but we'll see if I get any response. 
  • The strong seasonality of layoffs (Go look at the government non seasonally adjusted data. It is very 'spikey') could be making the two series non comparable at this time of year. Even though both series are compared on a year over year basis something may still be incorrect.
  • There could just be anxiety about losing ones job right now and those searches are showing up in the Google data.
  • Census workers are getting laid off right now and looking for new jobs but they may not be showing up in the unemployment claims data.
  • The Google data is relative to all other searches which should remove the bias of greater internet usage over time but it may not properly isolate this specific function used more as compared to others. 
Looking at the data you can see both series tend to follow the same direction but the Initial Claims data leads the Google Trends data (the graph is of a 30 day simple moving average of the daily data)  This time the Google data is leading the Initial Claims data (or is just plain wrong)  I could perhaps be asking too much of the Google data as well. Considering the slope of both is upwards I should perhaps call it good . . .

I don't have any bets placed due to this data but I'm still hopeful something can come of this series.  In a few hours we'll see if I'm still banging my head against a wall or onto something.

Source: Federal Reserve, Google

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Unemployement claims and Google Trends. Not much clarity.

Ok call that a whiff. . .  Initial unemployment claims were released today and showed a decline.  I'm going to keep my eye on these series and see if the two continue to diverge  . . .

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Google Unemployment Trends rising. Will initial claims follow suit?

I recently mentioned the correlation between Google Trends data on unemployment and initial unemployment claims data published by the government.  As you can see, in the short period of time since that last post the Google Trends data has risen dramatically.

I do not know if this is due to all the newly unemployed Census workers re-entering the ranks of the unemployed or if it is actually due to an 'unexpected' jump in initial claims.  We'll have more clarity in a few hours.

Either way the trend is not positive . . .

Source:
Federal Reserve, Google

Friday, July 2, 2010

Is Google Trends providing a sneak peak into the employment situation?

The employment report was released today and the results were weaker than expected.  From Bloomberg the consensus was for +105,000 private sector jobs while the number was actually 83,000.  Here's a little insight on who was not surprised.

Google Trends provides very interesting data regarding search terms over time.  One of the data series reported daily is the unemployment index consisting of search terms such as 'unemployment' and 'unemployment benefits'.   As you can see from this Google chart the growth of the unemployment index peaked in early 2009 and until very recently was consistently declining.

Comparing the year over year percent change in the 30 day smoothed Google Trends unemployment index to the Four Week Initial Claims as reported by the government is very instructive.  While there is noise it is very impressive how similar the trends and turning points are for each data series.

The recent 'unexpected increases' in Initial Claims coincides with the Google data basing and again turning upwards.  If you want to handicap future unemployment and initial claims reports starting with Google Trends will improve your odds. 

Other Google Trends reports are available on a plethora of topics and you'd be amazed at what you'll find.

Additional reading:
Voxeu.org

Predicting Initial Claims for Unemployment Benefits -- Hyunyoung Choi, Hal Varian

Friday, April 2, 2010

Running into the Great Firewall of China

I access data from public Chinese webservers for some of the data I present on this blog.  During the start of the Google/China controversy I began to notice some odd 'errors' as I attempted to access Chinese web servers.  Sometimes I get a simple 'hello!' from the server and nothing else, other times I get a 404 error and other times there is no problem.  

I wonder if the 'Great Firewall of China' as described by the WSJ is working on keeping away the outsiders as well? 
China generally doesn't tell its people when it is interfering with their Web access, unlike some other countries, such as Saudi Arabia, that give explanatory warning messages when users are denied access to forbidden sites.

Instead, China's filtering can look to users like a technical glitch—an error message in a user's browser that makes it seem like his connection to the Internet malfunctioned. Authorities don't discuss the methods or tools they use.

Anyone else running into the same issues? 
Here's one test I just ran:
http://www.pbc.gov.cn/  -- Returns 'hello'
 
http://www.pbc.gov.cn/english/ -- Gives me a 404 error (page not found)
 
Both of those sites have worked on and off for a week or so. If you do a Google search for "people's bank of china" these are the first links you get and the Chinese central bank is not an obscure web site I'm hitting.  There's others web sites that return the same errors... puzzling . . . .

[edit 04/05/10 11:20am pst: I was able to access the above web sites on Saturday and pull the data I was looking for.  Today, Monday, I was unable to do so and received the same error messages.  I'm going to get a packet sniffer and see if the error message / 'hello' comes from the same location as the normal data and see if the Great Fire Wall is somehow blocking me ]