Where Linux is hot, and where it’s not

I kind of like these sort of “hot or not” commentaries as they offered a no holds bared look at the subject at hand. In this instance, it’s Linux.

Do you think you know, I mean really know, where Linux is popular and where it’s not? I did, and you know what? I was wrong. I found out, thanks to a new feature from Google: Google Trends.

With Google Trends, you can enter in a word or a term, and find out where it’s popular. So, for example, if you entered “Steelers,” it wouldn’t surprise anyone who knows anything about American football that Pittsburgh is the city where the most people are Googling the guys in black-and-gold.

Notice how I said American football? To the rest of the world, soccer is football, and Linux turns out to much more popular outside of the U.S. than within.

Google’s new trend search is normalized. That is to say, the results are weighted not by raw numbers, but by numbers compared to the population. In sheer, raw numbers, the U.S. would lead the way in almost any category. That wouldn’t say much. But, by looking at what percentage of a population is interested in a subject, you can see where people have the hottest interest in a given subject…. Source: LinuxWatch