Interesting: FRC in Google Searches

[jfish872]

Its interesting that FRC gains interest every year.

[Roboshant]

Very interesting information. What I found rather weird is the fact that, although searches went up for "FRC" (obviously skewed due to other same acronyms, but follow general Jan-March pattern) and "FIRST Robotics Competition", searches for "FIRST robotics", "For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology", and "first robotics competition " went down. This can all be found here.

[messer5740]

First peak is kickoff. EVERYONE googles EVERYTHING they can about the kickoff and robots of previous years.

[GeeTwo]

Originally Posted by Oblarg

The secondary peak (corresponding to championships, maybe?) is getting comparatively smaller as time progresses, as well.

Originally Posted by EmileH

I would assume this peak is when the competition season starts, seeing as the interactive graph showed that as March.

Originally Posted by messer5740

First peak is kickoff. EVERYONE googles EVERYTHING they can about the kickoff and robots of previous years.

An interesting thing to note is that if you drop FIRST from the query, the March peak becomes much stronger than the January peak, March increasing year over year relative to January rather than declining. I'll toss out this hypothesis to explain this counter-trend, but I can't think of a test for it:

The January peak is primarily FIRST insiders (including former FIRST members and mentors), looking for info on this year's game. Year over year, there is little or even negative growth because most of the veterans know to go to usfirst.com (now firstinspires.com) or chiefdelphi.com or their old team website or TBA or somewhere like that, rather than querying google.

The March peak is primarily FIRST outsiders, who have heard of the robotics competition going on through friends and family members, but who didn't catch on to the name "FIRST", and if they did, they may have search for "1st".

If this hypothesis is true, this means that the word is increasingly getting out beyond the FIRST insiders year over year.

[WSiggs]

So the first rise of interest before the January spike each year must be registration.

[TheMilkman01]

It's good to see tangible proof that FIRST is growing annually. Seeing this graph reminds me of our YouTube Analytics over time, especially the "dead zone" of summer. Here's it for contrast: http://imgur.com/J0mPVkG

Note: The sudden spike this year that skews the data is YouTube live streams of competitions. We've also created the most content this year, which is another factor.

[cbale2000]

Here's a few more related search terms on the same graph, looks like the abbreviated "FRC" is much more frequently searched:

Graph

[Knufire]

Originally Posted by cbale2000

Here's a few more related search terms on the same graph, looks like the abbreviated "FRC" is much more frequently searched:

Graph

Probably because FRC also stands for the Family Research Council.

[cbale2000]

Originally Posted by Knufire

Probably because FRC also stands for the Family Research Council.

True, though you wouldn't expect to see as significant of spikes in the graph if the result were being significantly affected.

[Roboshant]

The searches for "chiefdelphi" are also very insightful.

[CalTran]

I enjoy the massive spike for "Frisbee launcher" in 2013.

[GeeTwo]

Originally Posted by Roboshant

The searches for "chiefdelphi" are also very insightful.

Quite curious. From my forays into searches and highlights, it seemed to me that the four peak years of CD posts were 2004-2007 [repeat - an impression, not a valid statistic]. The four years of CD searches were the next four years, 2008-2011.