By 
Tinz’s post about how Google Trends helps me not understand us, I remembered this site that I saw over the weekend
Some of you may already be aware of Google Zeitgeist, the summary Google publishes every year comparing this years search data to previous years. In 2008 there were a few hot topics, like the economy. The idea of the Layaway plan skyrocketed withing the same week the Dow imploded. They have colorful graphs too:
A graph of environmental keywords from 2008
There are other cool subjects too, like which baseball teams were Googled the most (Cubs were #3), and which comfort food people were thinking about. They also have international segments so you can see the important topics for any of like 35 different countries.
