In short: political polling is the math of meaningful chaos.

Some of the most sought after data are responses voters give in exit polls, polls taken after voters exit the voting booth that ask them who they just voted for. Pollsters can usually predict the results of the election based on these election polls, so it’s pretty coveted information. When asked about which candidate they voted for, pollsters will sometimes also ask voters other questions, like what issues guided them towards voting for their chosen candidate. It could be the economy, immigration, national security, hair cuts, ad negativity, or any of a thousand other variables that hold some ephemeral credence in the minds of American voters.

I’ve always suspected there may be a response bias in exit polls; that is, a voter will reply with answers that they think pollsters want to hear, not with answers that are actually sincere to the voter. Such a phenomenon can muddy the statistics and thus actual election results might not reflect the exit poll. The exit poll metric is less debatable when an election is a blowout, but in narrow races – which seems to be all that happens in the United States these past few presidential elections – it can be a highly contentious issue. That’s what prompts recalls, recounts, legal challenges and so on (*ahemFloridahum*). At any rate, can we ever be sure that voters are really being truthful about what issues concern them when responding to exit polls?

In the exit polls of Florida’s Republican primary earlier this week, people said that the economy was the issue that concerned them most (62%), followed by the federal deficit (23%), abortion (7%), and illegal immigration (3%). But are voters actually concerned with any of these issues or are these terms mere buzzwords that voters are parroting when asked by nosy exit pollsters? Google, who always looks to wave their titanic quantity of search data at a question in order to pan out an answer, may have the answer.

Google took a look at the search trends in Florida leading up to the election to see what people in The Sunshine State were searching for prior to the election. Through the use of Google Insights for Search, Google found that the issues weighted most heavily in the exit polls actually reflect the popularity of search trends in Florida. Turns out people in Florida really do consider the economy the most important issue.

What’s more, the exit polls show that 81% of voters consider home foreclosures in their community to be a problem. To check this out, I searched for “foreclosure” in Insights for Search and found that searches involving that word spiked up on January 30, the eve of the election primary. Even before the 30th, though, searches involving the word “florida foreclosure” have remained high in the state over the past year.

Google’s analysis of the search trends in Florida seems to corroborate the reliability of the exit polls. What’s more, this reveals a pretty potent fact: people probably aren’t just making things up or embellishing answers when responding to exit polls. They’re actually searching the issues and their answers in the exit polls seem to reflect their interests.

Given the positive correlation in the relationship between exit polls and search trends, this raises a pretty fascinating question: could search trends actually be used to predict the outcome of elections? Google’s been sharing the search trends of presidential candidates this year on their Google Politics & Elections News page, so it’ll be very peculiar in mid-November if the then-known election results (at least, let’s hope we know the results at that time) reflect the patterns observed in search trends leading up to November 6.

So is this the way we’re going now, crowd-sourced electioneering via Google? How do you think knowing the search trends among voters might affect the campaign of a candidate? Could it affect how you weight certain issues or candidates? Add your thoughts below in the comments.

The country is clamoring for news about the engagement, as is evidenced by Google Trends. And while Twitter may often break news, and provide up to the second commentary, sometimes the conversation is just boring. This is one of those times.

In fact, Elizabeth Smart is not even a Twitter trend. One of the top trends is #mustybutthole. A Bronx Tale is also trending. It must be on TV.

Suffice it to say, this is one of those times when “the conversation” isn’t so much around what everybody actually wants to know about. Smart continues to be a hot search trend.

Anyhow, here’s the most interesting tweets about Elizabeth Smart from the last several hours.

According to Yahoo, its top searched diets of the past week are:

1. Atkins diet
2. HCG diet
3. Paleo diet
4. Low Carb diet
5. Pink Method diet
6. 17 day diet
7. Dukan diet
8. Cabbage Soup diet
9. Vegan diet
10. Dr. Oz diet

Other popular diet search trends Yahoo lists include:

Of course, losing weight isn’t the only popular resolution. Searches for “funny new year’s resolutions” are up 3188% this week on Yahoo, the company says. “New Year’s resolution humor” searches are also up 1626%. I’m not sure why everyone is looking for hilarity in their life goals, but it is what it is. Also, “stop smoking herbs” are up 53%.

Meanwhile, there have been some spikes in certain “how to” queries that are likely related to New Year’s resolutions. “How to save money” is up 491%. “How to lose 10 pounds” is up 339%. “How to start a blog” is up 288%. “How to lower blood pressure” is up 114%. Finally, “how to lower cholesterol” is up 109%.

What’s your new year’s resolution. Do you plan on actually sticking to it?

“Searches for ‘steve jobs’ are up 1,079% in the past 7 days on Yahoo,” a spokesperson tells WebProNews “Searches are split evenly between males and females.”

“Searches for ‘apple rumors’ are up 8,161% in the past 7 days on Yahoo,” he adds.

That’s saying something because apple-related rumors have been a hot topic prior to Jobs’ announcement of his resignation.

Yahoo says the following searches are “off the charts” on Yahoo, meaning searches that received little to no searches the week/month before and are now gaining interest:

how old is steve jobs
is steve jobs dying
is steve jobs married
is steve jobs sick
steve jobs age
steve jobs apple
steve jobs biography
steve jobs cancer
steve jobs children
steve jobs dying
steve jobs family
steve jobs health
steve jobs health 2011
steve jobs health cancer
steve jobs health problems
steve jobs illness
steve jobs net worth
steve jobs news
steve jobs pancreatic cancer
steve jobs resign
steve jobs resignation

Clearly, his resignation has sparked a great deal of new interest in his well-being as well as his life in general.

Here is some more of our previous coverage of Jobs since his resignation:

Steve Jobs Resigns as CEO of Apple
Meet the New CEO of Apple, Tim Cook
AAPL: Apple Stock Declines Following Steve Jobs’ Resignation
Steve Wozniak Talks Steve Jobs and Apple
Steve Jobs: A Video Retrospective
Tim Cook to Apple Team: Apple is Not Going to Change
Steve Jobs Resignation Will Feature in Upcoming Biography
Steve Jobs: Apple Employees Say What They Think About Him
Yahoo Talks Expected Steve Jobs-Related Search Trends
Steve Jobs’ Career: The Law of Gravity, LSD and Lightsabers

“We sift through billions of Yahoo! searches to uncover trends, burning questions, popular personalities and hot ideas,” the team says. “Yahoo! has been extremely successful in sifting through searches for trend-spotting, historical insight, forecasting projections, and big-picture analysis.”

Yahoo says that it expects continued spikes in searches related to:

Yahoo says it also expects to see a big increase in questions related to Steve Jobs.:

• I’m expecting we’ll see searches on “is steve jobs dying” and many variations
•   “who is ___” – esp. “who is tim cook”; we’ll also see “who is steve jobs” searches
• “who will replace steve jobs”
• “why did steve jobs resign” and variations
• “what will steve jobs do now” – I saw this in a Facebook thread, so I expect it in search, too. 
• Users unfamiliar with his health history.
•   “who is on the apple board”

For more on Steve Jobs and the resignation, see our previous coverage:

Steve Jobs Resigns as CEO of Apple
Meet the New CEO of Apple, Tim Cook
AAPL: Apple Stock Declines Following Steve Jobs’ Resignation
Steve Wozniak Talks Steve Jobs and Apple
Steve Jobs: A Video Retrospective
Tim Cook to Apple Team: Apple is Not Going to Change
Steve Jobs Resignation Will Feature in Upcoming Biography
Steve Jobs: Apple Employees Say What They Think About Him

WebProNews received an email from Yahoo with some more interesting Osama search trend nuggets. I’ll simply post them as they were presented to us:

• On Yahoo! searches for Osama Bin Laden spiked 98,550% Sunday
• Searches for September 11^th spiked 1009% Sunday on Yahoo!
• President Bush searches are spiking 302% on Yahoo!
• People are very curious for details from Pakistan. Searches for “Pakistan Map” are spiking  2594% and “Pakistan News” are spiking 610% on Yahoo!.

People want to see the newspaper covers in Pakistan, searches for “Pakistan newspapers” are up 160%

• There is interest on Yahoo! in how this news will impact President Obama’s approval rating. Searches are up 119%
• Searches that are *off the charts on Yahoo! (Sunday data):

- 911 Attack

- 911 Conspiracy

- Obama Speech/Address

• 25% of searches on Yahoo! for “Osama Bin Laden” are coming from those under 24. We are also seeing searches spike for “who was Osama Bin Laden” on Yahoo!

Questions that are being searched on Yahoo!:

Yahoo says it sifts through billions of searches to uncover these trends.

“Yahoo! has been extremely successful in sifting through searches for trend-spotting, historical insight, forecasting projections, and big-picture analysis,” Yahoo Search Trends Program Lead Carolyn Clark tells us.

Lots more interesting Internet angles related to the Osama bin Laden news can be found here.

Google Beat taps into both Google Trends and Google Insights for Search, as well as some additional tools to come up with a snapshot of what people are searching for. Google’s Emily Wood writes:

You’ve probably seen our previous deep dives into Google search trends, like our annual year-end Zeitgeist and posts here about search trends related to events like the World Cup, the Oscars® and beyond. Searches can be unexpected, and sometimes what’s popular one week could never have been predicted the week before (think of Falcon Heene, last October’s “balloon boy” or Steven Slater). We’re looking forward to seeing what our data will reveal.

It’s unclear if Google’s going to post all of the videos on its blog, but there is a Google Beat YouTube channel that you can subscribe to if you want to keep up with it.

Robin Goad, research director for Hitwise UK, writes about its impact on SEO:

"This sudden popularity has led to flurry of bidding and optimization on digital photo frame related terms – primarily from gadget shops and sites set up specifically to cash in on the trend, but also from more mainstream retailers such as Amazon UK (‘digital photo frames’ was the 28th most popular search term sending traffic there over the last 4 weeks)."

Specifically, searchers across the pond are looking for Imagin, Phillips and Kodak in the 6.5-7 inch sizes.

Though Hitwise most definitely uses sophisticated technology to measure these trends, a quick double-checking at Google Trends paints a different picture. According to that source, though there’s been a slight bump in searches for digital photo frames in the past month, digital cameras are still higher on the list.

Slightly higher still is the Nintendo Wii, and far above all of them is the iPhone. But Google Trends also shows that interest in digital photo frames is significantly higher in the UK than in the US, perhaps because we’re just now hearing about them.