GZeitgeist RSS Feed - Subscribe Now

Summary

The Google Zeitgeist essentially lists popular search queries over a week's period (they also keep an extensive archive that goes back a few years). However, Google has not yet implemented an Atom or RSS feed for this content. It's pretty neat that they keep all this information, but what's the point if I can't get to that data through my feed aggregator? With a feed, maybe you or other creative people will do something innovative, like an art exhibition of popular search terms - or you might choose to extend your own feed that incorporates this one.

Technical details

This sucker is about 15 lines in Perl - yes, that's including whitespace. The script scrapes the zeitgeist HTML at regular intervals. I could have used Python or Ruby, or anything that has a regex engine. Perl was not only comfortable - but it ended up being the only valid CGI script on this server.

Access/Download/Parse Feed

Currently, there is only one version of the feed (low-fidelity). I'll extend it by adding in pictures and other cool things once I get my API toolkits all sorted (shouldn't be too long). For now you can download the feed by pointing your browser or reader to the following URL: http://www.whatspop.com/gzeitgeist/gzeitgeist.rdf

Caveats

This Perl script, like all other scrapers, is relatively feeble - merely because they are dependent on the source being consistently formatted. All will go well if Google does not change the layout or user interface of the page AND Google tells me to turn this off (not likely, but you never know).

Change History

July 12, 2005 - Launched the service, only low-fidelity for now

July 11, 2005 - Uploaded and configured script on WhatsPop

July 10, 2005 - Wrote the Perl script

Attribution

I got some influence and ideas from Justin Pfister and Kenny Roy. And obviously, a big thanks to the rad developers at Google for letting us view this search data.

Validate the RDF

Go ahead - this document should validate as RSS 1.0.

Complaints/Suggestions

If something breaks, let me know. If you want something different, let me know. I'll do my best to fix any problem as fast as possible.