Tama Leaver discovered that you can now use Google Trends to find information on what people in a particular country and even particular city are searching for. He noticed that while the world as a whole is more likely to search for “wiki” than for “blog”, Australians started using the search term “wiki” more than “blog” last autumn. Obviously I had to try the same for Norway, and lo and behold, Norway’s like Australia, not like the world. While wikis are more popular (well, in google searches) than blogs throughout Norway, the two major cities, Bergen and Oslo, show less of a difference – go have a look for yourself.
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Anne Helmond
The Dutch also show a slightly bigger difference between the two than the Australians. Wikis are newer than blogs and you can see the turning point in the Dutch statistics halfway 2005 and in the Australian statistics at 3/4 of 2005. The worldwide trend seems to be heading towards a halfway 2007 turning point. Does this mean that wikis are about to replace blogs as informational sources?
It makes one wonder.
Jill
Or maybe blogs have simply become so ubiquitous we no longer have to SEARCh for them – we find them everywhere? It would also make sense to imagine that a blog is something you read because you trust or are interested in the opinions of the writer, whereas a wiki is someting you’d trust (or at least consider) as a consensus opinion, closer to “information” than opniion?