Thursday, June 3, 2010

Why the Pulse?

I started this blog because it occurred to me, while writing 100 Unsuitable Jobs, that the internet is really rather a curious place...

As I waded through the chaotic jumble that is cyberspace, hunting down the job that would be just right to apply for, I couldn't help but notice that there were ebbs and flows in the sea of information; peaks and troughs as topics suddenly crested to the surface of public awareness, had their vague fifteen minutes of fame, then disappeared into oblivion...

There are, at least according to Internet World Stats, almost two billion people using the internet. Two billion. Billions of fingers typing away, billions of mouse clicks. Likely millions of people, right at this moment, pretending to be working while really surfing the net. Tens of thousands of people looking at sites they know they shouldn't be. Hundreds of people spilling hot beverages over their keyboards as we speak. And at least one person adding George W Bush as a friend on facebook...

And, alongside all of this, there are billions of internet searches. About 140 billion a month to be (not entirely) exact and Google handles 88 billion of these - which is about 32,000 every single second.

So I was curious to see just what it is that people are getting so excited about. What are they searching for? Who is having their 15 minutes of fame and why? 

My aim is to poke the hornet's nest of the internet each day and see what's going on. And possibly make fun of it. A little...

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