Google Top Trends Maps Our Internet Obsessions Since 2004

Justin Bieber, the Corvette C7, and dogs: Google is distilling its trend results into top ten charts, with a colorful new real-time display of what people are searching for most. The popular queries are subdivided into forty categories – spanning sport, music stars, movies, and more – and will be updated month, Google said.

For a more immediate insight into what's being searched for, however, there's also the new visualization tool for hot searches. That flicks through the latest queries in Google's typically luminous colors.

There's perhaps more to be gleaned from the top trends charts – though the hot searches display might look good as a screensaver – and you can break down the lists by location and date. Interestingly, Google's results go back to January 2004, when searchers were most interested in Moby, Paris Hilton, and McDonald's.

In the intervening period, Kim Kardashian has knocked Paris from the top spot, and Pizza Hut has ousted its burger-vending rival. Moby has dropped to fourth place, with Skrillex taking pole position.

Despite diversions like Glass, search still remains Google's key focus online. Earlier today, the company activated the next generation of "conversational search" for Chrome users, using its Knowledge Graph technology to give inferential search results, among other things.