Postcards from Planet Google

With 150 million queries a day coming to its search engine site from more than 100 countries and in 86 languages Google is the ultimate proof that global village has arrived. As the New York Times story notes "Despite its geographic and ethnic diversity, the world is spending much of its time thinking about the same things. Country to country, region to region, day to day and even minute to minute, the same topic areas bubble to the top: celebrities, current events, products and computer downloads." The report quotes a Google official as saying, "It's amazing how similar people are all over the world based on what they are searching for." The queries on Google reflects the globalization of consumer culture -- the most popular brands are far-flung in origin such as Sony, BMW, Ferrari, Ikea and Microsoft. - YaleGlobal