# Trends in our hobby according to Google.



## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

I'm a master of discovering things that others have known for ages. Except I get so childishly excited about it that I think the experience is worth it.

See if you are like me. Google any other word/phrase you want.

Here I looked at what Google knows about people searching for 3 things: *"Planted Tank", "Aquascaping", and "Takashi Amano"*:

http://www.google.com/trends?q=planted+tank,+aquascaping,+Takashi+Amano

One can very much say that for whatever reason interest in the name "Takashi Amano" drops suddenly every so often every year. Maybe folk going on vacation or something.

But notice that the sudden disinterest in *"Takashi Amano"* seems to be correlated to drop in interest in "Planted Tank" and "Aquascaping". I can't say who pulls down who. But it is an interesting data to look at.

Also look at how fast the interest in "Takashi Amano" raises and falls. Maybe the sudden jumps up are a result of a concerted effort to jack up the popularity through advertisement. And note how every time after a fast climb there is a gradual drop followed by a sudden drop. Then rest in peace. And shoot up abruptly again. Interesting!

[* "Aquascaping" maybe a misleading word. It may not pertain to aquariums at all.]

*Other searches:*
Performing a trend search for the same words but by themselves gives more details about Countries, Cities, Languages.

"Reef aquarium" searches show a definite decline in the last few years:
http://www.google.com/trends?q=reef+aquarium

"Marine aquarium" is even worst:
http://www.google.com/trends?q=marine+aquarium

"Fish tank" is on the raise:
http://www.google.com/trends?q=fish+tank

"Saltwater fish tank" shows similar trends to "Aquascaping":
http://www.google.com/trends?q=saltwater+fish+tank

"Nature Aquarium" - trends similar to the above:
http://www.google.com/trends?q=Nature+Aquarium

I'm not sure what I learned from the above interesting but multi-faceted information.
Maybe someone can come up with a graph and explain it in a smart way for all of us.

--Nikolay


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## HeyPK (Jan 23, 2004)

I wish they would give the number scale on the Y axis. I notice for "planted tank" interest rises during the winter months and falls during spring and summer. I think we all knew that already.

For the search term, Cryptocoryne, the ranking is Lithuania, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Singapore, Hungary, Poland, Germany, Denmark, Austria, Malaysia. The U.S. isn't there at all. Poo! 

Here is the language ranking For Cryptocoryne:
1. Lithuanian	
2. Czech	
3. Slovak	
4. Hungarian	
5. Croatian	
6. Polish	
7. German	
8. Danish	
9. Romanian	
10. Italian


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## ukamikazu (Jun 4, 2010)

That is truly fascinating.

*Regarding "Planted Tank", "Aquascaping", and "Takashi Amano":*
I would have expected a major dip in 2008 but Singapore is just tearing it up! I would have expected "aquascaping" to level peg with "planted tank" but it isn't far off and I would view the terms as complimentary. Takashi Amano looks like he follows very typical business, marketing and advertising cycles. It would be neat to see a comparison of him to, say, Oliver Knott. I blurt out his name because I'm having trouble thinking of another aquatic gardener with his own signature line of products. Would Dennerle or Tropica be another equivalent comparison?

*Regarding "reef aquarium":*
This is another one I would expect to have thoroughly sunk after 2008 but it did that in 2006 and has remained very stable. It seems this is THE thing to do in the Anglophonic Nations.

*Regarding "marine aquarium":*
This is an interesting inversion and I didn't know South Africa is a hot spot. Again, it tanked in 2006 but has remained steady on even through 2008.

*Regarding "fish tank":*
That's just very anglophically low key. I'm having thoughts here.

*Regarding "saltwater fish tank":*
Hmmm, I'm seeing a pattern in all this saltwater/marine stuff...

*Regarding "nature aquarium":*
That seems to have taken on a life of its own outside of Takashi Amano's machinations. As a concept, it is its own, living ecosystem. It's index volume beats the pants off of everything else, which leads me to what I believe you have actually done...

...I think you've ended up trending and in a sense surveying language. Specifically, how different native English speakers in different parts of the world and those who speak English as a second language would describe their hobby or the hobby in general. Yes, we see different indices for specific terms but not for the abstract concept of an expensive glass box full of water, weeds and fish. That's tougher to do.

Certainly, you've charted interest in discrete time periods, but I think for different dialects of English. I'd want to see an aggregate of all concepts (your keywords) at once then a regression based on dialect or continent. I honestly believe you've accidentally contributed something to the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis.

Now the challenge. What if you made these trends more, say, Indian or Chinese targeted? What if you dug out whatever the common, even slang terms for a marine aquarium or freshwater planted tanks out of Mandarin or Hindi (समुद्री मछलीघर and 海洋水族館 & मीठे पानी एक्वैरियम लगाया and 淡水水族栽 respectively)? Trend those and then let's see how similar they are. I bet the picture is completely different.

Overall, a very good job Niko! Informative and thought provoking as always. I'm going to have to play more with Google's trending capabilities now.


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## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

Yes!

The language part is huge!!!

I cannot even begin to tell the truth about finding extremely interesing information about planted tanks only because I'm not afraid to look at words written in a language I don't understand, try to translate them and so on. Very much everything that I've tried to say here on APC for about a year now has been a result of these language journeys.

This hobby would be very, very different in the US if we had more curiosity for information in other languages.

It's the same with Google, YouTube, and even Craigslist. It's like having parallel realities and all of them are very very well developed structures. Looking at only one (English search results) does NOT give you the full picture.

_Amusing example (does not have to do with aquariums):
Looking for street workout videos on YouTube you find all these black guys doing amazing things on the bar. It's outright intimidating:









Then you look for the same thing in Russian and you are blown away by what skinny white boys can do (with great ease mind you, no intimidation attitude, and even a sense of humor):












_
And yes - charting "fish tank" was an intentional thing. Around here "fish tank" is a phrase used more often for aquariums. When I saw the graph for it I too started to wonder about the language side of these statistics. And how they most likely miss entire big universes of data exactly because of the way language is.

--Nikolay


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## ukamikazu (Jun 4, 2010)

Having absolutely no knowledge of that, if I were to take that as information in a vacuum, I would come away thinking that young men in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast just really like jungle gyms and hardcore gangster rap a lot  and that playing on them is a spectator sport for the entire family! An excellent example!


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## fishyjoe24 (May 18, 2010)

wow crazy, those are very interesting charts.... what about low light planted tank, or high tech planted tank... or aquatic plants...


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## Zapins (Jul 28, 2004)

Wow that is really interesting Niko, I didn't know about google trends. This is a really valuable resource. 

I'll have to think about the original link you posted. I think that the intervals are definitely saying something. It probably does have to do with advertising or maybe the annual AGA aquascaping awards? What month does the competition opened/end?


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## ukamikazu (Jun 4, 2010)

Going back to the idea of language influencing thought, I figured something out. Getting good, proper translations I have been able to map the following concepts and find words that are on par with one another despite the languages.

German: Wasserpflanzen, http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&biw=1920&bih=1048

Chinese and Japanese: 水草, http://www.google.com/search?um=1&h...upl=40891l40891l0l41136l1l1l0l0l0l0l54l54l1l1

English: Aquarium plants, http://www.google.com/search?um=1&h...19387l0l19633l15l11l0l0l0l0l255l1322l4.6.1l11

I put in the Google image search URL's to show that there is a 1:1 correspondence with their meanings. Images at this point quite a bit more concrete than mere words when trying to demonstrate conceptual symmetry.

Now check this out:

http://www.google.com/trends?q=wasserpflanzen,+水草,+aquarium+plants&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0

Asia is hot for this hobby! Teutonic peoples seem to take a keen interest and people of the anglophonic persuasion are trying their best to keep up with Asia. I'd love to know what happened at the end of 2nd quarter 2004, though. That looks bad and wrong, but look at what happened at the end of 2010/beginning of 2011, was there a conference or something?

My point is here is conceptual equality despite language. This is an accurate statement, I feel, of our hobbies popularity and interest among three different peoples in much more parsimonious terms with no linguistic or cultural baggage.


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## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

Look at the declining overall trend. In all 3 languages.

I don't quite get why according to Google interest is steadily declining while we here are under the impression that the hobby has been steadily growing.

Also - what is "News Reference Volume"? (the graph under the first set of jagged lines)

--Nikolay


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## HeyPK (Jan 23, 2004)

Maybe interest is only appearing to decline. Newbies probably use google much more than experienced, established hobbyists. Maybe the number of newbies is declining, but not the total number of hobbyists.


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## ukamikazu (Jun 4, 2010)

HeyPK said:


> Maybe interest is only appearing to decline. Newbies probably use google much more than experienced, established hobbyists. Maybe the number of newbies is declining, but not the total number of hobbyists.


Agh! Ninja'd!

Here's Google's explanation of that, http://www.google.com/intl/en/trends/about.html#8.



> 8. Is the News reference volume graph scaled?
> 
> No. The graph is for illustrative purposes, and simply shows you the number of times your topic appeared in Google News stories.


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## houseofcards (Feb 16, 2005)

What is the base of these graphs. How many people are represented? I noticed that in the US not all states are represented.


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## ukamikazu (Jun 4, 2010)

It's just limited to top 10 localities. It's good for generalizations and quick comparisons of people's search habits over a certain period of time. I wouldn't do any hard research using it but it is fascinating nevertheless.

Again, from Google's FAQ,


> 14. How does counting and ranking of the top regions, cities, and languages work, and are they scaled differently?
> 
> To rank the top regions, cities, or languages, Google Trends first looks at a sample of all Google searches to determine the areas or languages from which we received the most searches for your first term. Then, for those top cities, Google Trends calculates the ratio of searches for your term coming from each city divided by total Google searches coming from the same city. The city ranking you see on the page and the bar charts alongside each city name both represent this ratio. When cities' ratios are fairly close together, the corresponding bar graphs will be roughly the same length, and the exact ranking between these cities is less meaningful.
> 
> ...


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## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

So from this declining Google trend and from what we think we see here and on other forums (a lot of activity) it looks like planted tanks are an active and growing hobby pretty much unknown to the general public.

If I'm right then a practical application of this facts would be to actively (as local clubs) to take a deliberate course toward making the hobby more popular. Which has got to lead to better products, more availability and hopefully reasonable prices that do not brand our hobby as "cheap".

If I'm right about that need to popularize the hobby I'd ditch the LFS. For kids - hospitals, schools (I guess Montessori would be a good candidate because of the emphasis on interaction with Nature, but I wonder if they'd even listen to you beacause of the upscale aura they project), any other places that are not an outright business but where kids spend time on a regular basis. For the adults I'm at loss - it will all have to do with money and aquarium service companies have probably already taken over.


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## ukamikazu (Jun 4, 2010)

Niko, my apologies if I got this wrong or I've misidentified your provenance, but I couldn't pass this up.

Russian: Aквариумные Pастения, http://www.google.com/search?client...source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1920&bih=1084

It's in green and a little disconcerting, http://www.google.com/trends?q=wass...умные+растения&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=3.


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## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

Something that does not have to do with aquariums at all. But shows an interesting psycological aspect I guess.

I did a trend search for "Occupational Therapy" - a profession that has to do with teaching people to basically perform normal daily activities. The graph is very interesting. It shows that year after year, every single time, around Christmas people seem to not want to think about serious traumatic issues and experiences. Nothing new I guess but the predictability of the searches is amazing.

Look at the dips each and every Christmas:
http://www.google.com/trends?q=occupational+therapy

In a way I can say that around Christmas we seem to forget the crippled, the old, and the sick.

In a way. Look what this trend shows. Why is it that right about the same time the word "veterans" gets a huge spike every year at the same time?
http://www.google.com/trends?q=veterans

Wow!

I only wish there was more information about this Google trend thing. We can sit here and analize things to hell and back but if we don't keep it simple it will all be just speculations.

Also, on an even more practical note if you are interested in this thread you will probably be interested in the videos on this website:
http://www.gapminder.org/videos

And specifically the one below - in the beginning he talks about vast databases that we have available that can give us a lot of insight IF we could find good ways to access them. I guess this Google Trends gizmo showing us Google's view of the world using only Google as a reference is a child's toy compared to the databases Rosling is talking about.
http://www.gapminder.org/videos/hans-rosling-ted-2006-debunking-myths-about-the-third-world

--Nikolay


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## ukamikazu (Jun 4, 2010)

niko said:


> So from this declining Google trend and from what we think we see here and on other forums (a lot of activity) it looks like planted tanks are an active and growing hobby pretty much unknown to the general public.
> 
> If I'm right then a practical application of this facts would be to actively (as local clubs) to take a deliberate course toward making the hobby more popular. Which has got to lead to better products, more availability and hopefully reasonable prices that do not brand our hobby as "cheap".
> 
> If I'm right about that need to popularize the hobby I'd ditch the LFS. For kids - hospitals, schools (I guess Montessori would be a good candidate because of the emphasis on interaction with Nature, but I wonder if they'd even listen to you beacause of the upscale aura they project), any other places that are not an outright business but where kids spend time on a regular basis. For the adults I'm at loss - it will all have to do with money and aquarium service companies have probably already taken over.


Yes and no! Popularize it, especially through school science classes, glamorize it if you must, but I think the LFS is still key. Personally, I'd argue that if there were more LFS's who specialized in plants in a full service way and who sold fish most compatible with them, you'd see more people taking an interest and less people keeping ridiculous species like plecos, arapaimas and pangasius cats.

Now, suspend your disbelief for a moment and imagine such an LFS growing legal, whether locally grown or imported, plants, even having a specialty they are famous for like cloned _Bucephalandra_, selling complete ecosystems and, since we're playing let's pretend, say those plants and fish are fair trade or brought in by hobbyists and breeders. You have a sustainable system of supply for the organisms, you can buy the house brand of mineralized topsoil and cap it with a number of cheap, quality substrates like say a 70/30 mix of arcillite and zeolite for $2.50 per cubic foot or the house premium select MTS that has peat humus, laterite, azomite and dolomitic lime already mixed in, famous in five counties! The proprietor always gives you a fair amount of credit for your weeds and even takes the culls from your spawns and supports the local club by letting them meet in his shop after hours for a modest fee. He's got a tank maintenance business like any other LFS but mostly schools of all kinds for their science departments and the local zoos, sanctuaries and TPWD likes working with him because he really pushes keeping native species in the home aquarium and pond.

God, if that doesn't sound like a wet dream...


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## ukamikazu (Jun 4, 2010)

niko said:


> Something that does not have to do with aquariums at all. But shows an interesting psycological aspect I guess.
> 
> I did a trend search for "Occupational Therapy" - a profession that has to do with teaching people to basically perform normal daily activities. The graph is very interesting. It shows that year after year, every single time, around Christmas people seem to not want to think about serious traumatic issues and experiences. Nothing new I guess but the predictability of the searches is amazing.
> 
> ...


No worries, mate! I've been a fan and ardent supporter of professor Hans Rosling for well over a month now and my eyes are wide freakin' open! I tell as many people about him and his work as will let me. His hour long BBC documentary, "The Joy of Stats" was a moment of crystallization for me.


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## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

Oh! You maybe a fan of eye opening-mind expanding views. But look what REAL fans do!

http://www.google.com/trends?q=hans+rosling,+jersey+shore&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0

hehe


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## ukamikazu (Jun 4, 2010)

That's just depressing :mad2:.


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## fishyjoe24 (May 18, 2010)

niko said:


> Oh! You maybe a fan of eye opening-mind expanding views. But look what REAL fans do!
> 
> http://www.google.com/trends?q=hans+rosling,+jersey+shore&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0
> 
> hehe


=;:whip:


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