I just learned about the existence of something called Google Trends today. It’s just another example of how Google is the black hole of all data and how the folks that run the show are smart enough to actually do something interesting with all that stuff. Whether what they do with is for good or evil is fodder for another blog post, I reckon.

Google trends takes data on domestic Web searches and parses it according to industry sector. Since NewmanPR is heavily involved in the travel industry, I checked out the Google trends graph on travel searches since 2004 and G’s forecast for 2010. Here it is.

Unfortunately, the travel search data does not include cruises, which makes this graph a little less pertinent to us. However, the trend is pretty clear — since 2008, people have been searching less for terms like airlines, hotels, Vegas and travel. And from the looks of the forecast, it’s only going to get worse next year.

I’d like to think that maybe as a society we’re just getting better at searching the Internet, and that’s why there are fewer searches in the travel sector. But I don’t think so. Here’s the “interest over time” graph of social networks and online communities:

Looks like it’s a good thing we’re learning this new media stuff.