Ever feel like you’ve gotten into a rut? Sometimes it seems like you get into a routine and it’s nearly impossible to get out of it. Drudgereport. MacMinute. MacDailynews. ESPN. My eBay. DealMac. Google News. USAToday. That’s my rut. I’ll admit it.

I can’t help feeling there has to be more to the internet than that. Right? Right? Is this thing on?

Using the Yahoo Buzz Index, you can see what the world is looking at (or searching for) all in convenient, easy to digest bites (bytes). The Yahoo! Buzz Index compiles data from the Yahoo! search log files and then compares it to previous data to show which search terms are rising (Buzz Movers) and falling (Buzz Basement).

So, how does it work? Each person or subject is given a buzz score. The buzz score is ‘the percentage of Yahoo! users searching for that subject on a given day, multiplied by a constant to make the number easier to read. Weekly leaders are the subjects with the greatest average buzz score for a given week’. On the Yahoo! Buzz Index home page you will find the overall Top Movers (see chart at left for the top movers for 1/21/05) and their 1-Day Move as well as the top movers in a variety of categories including; actors, movies, music, sports, television, and video games.

The editors of the Yahoo! Buzz Index do a very good job of pointing out spikes and trends, all with a humorous lean. For example, in a discussion of the possible choice of actor for the next 007 movie they discuss the highest ranked actors who are rumored to be donning the tux (as they say) and the top non-contenders that they’d love to see get an audition, including David Beckham, Brian Bosworth, Napolean Dynomite, Verne Troyer and Troy McClure (you may have seen him in such films as The Verdict was Mail Fraud and The President’s Neck is Missing!).

Other topics parsed through the power of log files include Girl Scout Cookies, The Australian Open, American Idol, the Fantastic Four movie, Prom Searches and more. For those who prefer to use RSS (What is RSS?) the Yahoo! Buzz Index is also available as an RSS feed.

So, if you feel like you’ve gotten into a bit of a rut, give yourself a little buzz and I’m sure your surfing will pick right up.

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