A Map of Keywords
How Anxiety, Schadenfreude and Tech Rumors fuel the Internet
Rewind back to January: As we were trying to get our heads around what happened in 2014, we produced this map of keywords that drove the most consumption of digital media around the world. Taking a macro view like this revealed some interesting patterns between major news stories that struck a chord with global audiences.
Why does that matter now? Well looking back on the map, it’s striking to see just how many of these patterns persist.
Let’s take the prominence of the keyword “Police” in the US; it’s unlikely this word has diminished in potency since the map was published (interesting to note how much that word resonated in Brazil and Australia as well).
If anything we would expect it’s become more prominent as news stories related to excessive force cascade and the international consciousness expands.
But an example like this is symptomatic of a larger (but not the sole) pattern we’ve observed in content consumption: when it comes to the stories we encounter on the Internet, latent anxiety is a powerful agent in what we choose to engage with.
Click here to view the full map
We’ve made this observation in smaller samples with quick studies on the Auto category and even New Years Resolutions, but seeing it blown up at this scale and analyzed over an entire year’s worth of data, it becomes more clear. Observe the frequency of “Flight” or related keywords to recent airline disasters; or even the word “College.” This is the fuel the news cycle runs on, and as consumers, we can’t turn away.
And then there’s Apple.
No one would be surprised if the prominence and frequency of “Apple” across several countries turned out to be immutable. Anyone reading this in the queue for the Apple Watch?
While no other brand enjoys the ubiquity of “Apple” and its related products across the board, in specific categories, brands overall fare well as the biggest drivers of curiosity for consumers (has this always been true? Social media and the sheer velocity at which news travels in digital means that brands don’t have to be embroiled in a PR disaster and or get on the evening news somehow to make a splash. They don’t necessarily need to make a “splash” at all —they just need to make interesting moves from time to time and see which of them resonated).
In Auto, tech darling “Tesla” competed gamely with more established brands like BMW and Ford over the course of a year. Will it have eclipsed those brands as a keyword driver (no pun intended) in a year’s time?
In Electronics, you can literally see the battle of home entertainment platforms like Amazon, Netflix, Microsoft (Xbox) and Sony play out in Game-of-Thrones-like fashion. By year’s end, who will have made the biggest gains in global domination?
On the Home & Lifestyle front, well… let’s just say some things never change and leave it at that.
So there you have it; few things inspire curiosity in digital audiences like anxiety, schadenfreude and the tech rumor mill. Just a brief retrospective for your Thursday viewing pleasure.
What patterns do you see that still ring true today? And what would you like to see the next time we refresh the Global Interest Map? Tweet us @Outbrain.
Originally published to the Outbrain blog APRIL 23, 2015
