C&RL News March 2010  176

Gary Pattillo is reference librarian at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, e-mail: pattillo@email.
unc.edu

G a r y  P a t t i l l o

Mining social Web data
A number of Web applications allow users to mine social Web data to find con-
nections and patterns among people and institutions online. Whether this is one 
more chink in your privacy armor or the coolest tool since the toaster is open 
for debate. Web sites such as Twiangulate, HiveMind, and Follower Wonk can 
reveal who people are following mutually on Twitter as well as your followers 
in common. You can use these tools to find interesting people or entities on 
social networking sites. With sites like these, as well as the release of Google 
Buzz, various online social networking sites are becoming more integrated.
Marshall Kirkpatrick, “Meet the First Miners of the New Social Graph,” ReadWriteWeb, www.readwriteweb.com/archives 
/george_stephanopoulos_wolf_blitzer_ana.php (cited February 11, 2010).

Search trends
What do Twitter, Michael Jackson, Facebook, and Hulu have in common? They 
are among the most rapidly rising search terms on Google during the past 12 
months. Google Zeitgeist and its related tools, such as Insights For Search, 
enable users to examine the billions of queries that people around the world 
have typed into the Google search engine. Search limiters include region, date, 
category, metro region, and search terms.
Marissa Mayer, “Zeitgeist 2009: The Collective Consciousness,” Google, Inc. googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/zeitgeist-
2009-collective-consciousness.html (cited January 8, 2010).

Real-time search
In a recent article, Phil Bradley discusses the concept of real-time search and 
highlights some of the functionality that users can expect to find with these 
online tools. “Real-time search” includes the ability to find something on the 
Web that was made available in the last few seconds or hours. Twitter’s search 
function is the most well-known, but aggregate search engines, such as Collecta, 
index content from several sources simultaneously (Flickr, Twitpic, Twitter, 
Youtube, etc.). Another—CrowdEye—provides access to popular searches and 
the current top 20 Web sites.
Phil Bradley, “Search Engines: Real-time Search,” Ariadne, issue 61, October 2009 (cited December 18, 2009). Available 
at www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue61/search-engines/.

Climate.gov
A new Web site will serve as a single point of entry for National Oceanic and 
Atmospheric Administration climate information, data, products, and services. 
This climate portal will provide information about the impacts of climate on 
many areas, such as agriculture, energy, transportation, economics, and research. 
Climate.gov features a Global Climate Dashboard providing interactive data 
visualization for measurements, such as temperature, sea level, carbon dioxide, 
and Arctic sea ice. The site contains links to a wealth of data and educational 
resources.
“Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco Unveil Landmark Climate.Gov Portal 
to Climate Information,” NOAA-National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, www.noaanews.noaa.gov 
/stories2010/20100208_climategov.html (cited February 9, 2010).

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