There’s something fascinating about firing up the Google Trends search history and comparing the search volume for two different things. Some interesting data I’ve looked at there includes Jews vs Muslims vs Christians (Jews win, despite being a relative minority), Jesus vs Santa vs Easter Bunny (Jesus wins only when it’s not a holiday), Art vs Science (heh, get it?), AFL vs Rugby and Ballina vs Byron Bay.

Interestingly, Byron’s search volume appears to be dropping slowly over the years. Although this is normal compared with the rate of decline for other various searches.. like “art” and “music”. This seems to be a trend for search overall, not just Byron. Ballina bucks this trend though and appears to be ascending in search volume. At this rate they should reach popularity parity around 2025!

I guess that means you’ve got plenty of time to plan moving your accommodation / backpacker / alternative therapy / market /yoga business to Ballina!

The trends tool also shows an increase in Byron + Ballina related news, although 4 of the articles Google identified in my recent search were about gloomy topics like shark attacks, drownings and floods. Maybe that explains the waning interest in the area? It’s hard to say, but Google’s free trend tool certainly gives us a little glimpse of insight into a large population’s aggregated mind share.