Blogs vs Wikis

Using Google Trends and its ability to limit searches by region, Tama Leaver tested the comparative popularity of ‘blog’ versus ‘wiki’ and found something unexpected:

Cumulatively, global searchers are still typing in ‘blog’ more, but in Australia, ‘wiki’ is a more popular term, and has been since the end of the first quarter of 2006.

And guess what – this also seems to be the case in Norway. As Jill Walker points out:

Obviously I had to try the same for Norway, and lo and behold, Norway’s like Australia, not like the world. While wikis are more popular (well, in google searches) than blogs throughout Norway, the two major cities, Bergen and Oslo, show less of a difference

As Jill points out in the comment section, maybe blogs have simply become so ubiquitous we no longer have to search for them. We know where to find them and we treat them as a trustworthy and reliable source. So maybe the curious sounding result of this Google search is that blogs grew up to become an integral component of our everyday media habits.

-Jens