I suspect it’s a lot more specific than just country, since the two Baltimore results indicate Google knows I’m near Baltimore.

Perhaps Google’s search services in the United States are more tailored to the regions or individual States, as there are simply so many more Americans than Canadians.

I note that we share 8 of the 26 words with the American lists here, which strangely enough IMHO is about right culturally as well: in general terms, Canadians and Americans have identical views and attitudes on about 1/3 of all topics. We share 7 (8 if you count the ‘Lotto’ in both) out of 26 with the Brits…and that seems culturally about right, too.

But I also note that we what we share with the Americans differs slightly from what we share with the Brits…which seems, culturally, also right.

Brits share five with the US.

Any Aussies out there? What’s on your list?
I wonder if this could be used as a kind of proxy to measure rough cultural differences and similarities between English-speaking countries in general.

Ato,Bom, Centrelink, domain, eBay, facebook, gmail, Hotmail, Ikea, Jetstar, Kangaroo (actually it’s Kmart), Limewire, maps, NAB, Optus, PayPal Qantas, RTA, Seek, Telstra, utube, Virgin Blue, White pages, Xe, YouTube, Zumba

A is for amazon
B is for best buy
C is for craigslist
D is for dictionary
E is for ebay
F is for facebook
G is for gmail
H is for hotmail
I is for iphone
J is for justin bieber
K is for kitv
L is for lowes
M is for myspace
N is for netflix
O is for orbitz
P is for pandora
Q is for quotes
R is for ross
S is for star advertiser
T is for target
U is for usps
V is for verizon
W is for weather
X is for xbox
Y is for youtube
Z is for zippys

I wish I’d thought of the poetry though.

For those who don’t live here, KITV is a local TV station, of course, Ross is a discount clothes store, and Zippy’s is a local fast food chain, not the pinhead.

Though I would emend:
X is for Xbox, except in Fort Gay

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-20015821-71.html

As [caribou] implied – I wonder if companies pay for those placings?

But Robbie is wrong about QVC. Often confused with the fly-by-night home shopping networks of the early 80′s, they actually run a legit business with good products and stellar customer service policies. Oh yeah, and the prices are generally lower or comparable to what you find elsewhere.

I swear I’m not a shill, just a fan. :)

So if you sometimes search Google for pr0n, careful about using Google Instant in front of your SO.

This also reminds me of Edward Gorey’s The Gashlycrumb Tinies, which I love.

I HAVE AN IDEA. ARE YOU LISTENING GOOGLE?
Why stop at autocomplete? Spell checkers could be a source of ad revenue too!

Me>Cryaon
Google>”Did you mean to type “Crayola?”"

Lots of NZ companies in there. Two references to the 7.1 Christchurch Earthquake on Saturday – one under C, and Geonet is the natural hazards reporting website – something I’ve been looking at a lot as the earth keeps shaking underneath me. Not fun!!

For me (on a neutral .com search) the results are:

A = Amazon, AOL, ATT, Apple, A

What worries me most about that is that it’s pure consumerism. I love to consume, but this is based on the habits of everyone with data access and how they interact with limitless data.

With all the knowledge and media available all we want to do is spend money on stuff?

The other side to the coin of course is that Google is just trying to make us click on sponsored links and make themselves some money.

Which is dirty, but admittedly very few people search for ‘A’.

Instant search will completely change the game for SEO folk though; where search terms are now not complete, and partial search-terms become a lot more exposed.

Not enough fuss is being made about this; as we’re just seeing it as a usability feature or a gimmick; but this will literally change how we are exposed to content on the net – and it looks consumer focussed to me.

I guarantee that in 12 months internet usage stats will have completely changed.

I spend too much time on the internets.