Google recently improved their Zeitgeist feature and launched something called Google Trends. Yahoo has had Buzz for quite some time. As with Google News, the big G likes to automate things rather than use humans. By contrast, Yahoo does use human editors.

So I passed by Trends today and the first item on their list at the time was Hermes Winged Sandals. It ranked “spciy” on their “hotness” level.

I thought Hermes might be expanding their line…but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

I’ve googled the term, looked at their links and still can’t understand why this stands out. All Women’s Talk blogged about some new Sandals by Irregular Choice. I doubt that’s enough to make it a trend. Homer-related searches are prominent as well. There is also a mention of the sandals in cosforums, about the Harry Potter book series. But I’m far from understanding why this is a trend.

So I went to Yahoo’s Buzz to try and find something on Hermes Winged Sandals. No luck.

So far Google Trends is not looking that good. But instead, let’s compare two terms that are in both services today. Oh wait, there are none.

By contrast, let’s go to the Buzz homepage and see what they’re talking about. On the left side of the page, there are presumably Yahoo employees blogging about the latest Buzz. Erik Gunther on “Babes of the Universe“. Mike Krumboltz blogs about Sarah Fisher and the other two girls at Indy. Very useful. And on the right is a linked list of today’s Buzz. For example, Bill Vendall is a “Top Mover”. A couple of clicks and you can see that Sanjaya of American Idol faked being Bill Vendall. Video below.

Conclusion? So far, Google Trends is a bust. But they’ll probably work on it.