The AltaMeter is a lot

The AltaMeter is a lot of fun: enter two or more words (or names, phrases, etc.) and see how they rank in terms of Altavista hits. This is actually an idea I first saw implemented by my boss (currently Executive Director of BlackPlanet.com) a couple of years ago – he wanted to chart the results of such a query over time as a sort of index of memetic currency. I didn’t think then that the search engines would do a good job of exposing trends in popular consciousness, and this query supports my thesis. I think this is due to a shortcoming of search engines in general – the idea itself is elegant and ought to be possible through the proper application of technology and algorithm.