Google is now in the prognosticating business.  Google Trends has now been updated to allow you to PEER INTO THE FUTURE!  The new site now features a glowing ball that you simply talk to… ok, just kidding…  this is just straight up statistics folks.  They have enough information on google search that they are now able to give predictive trends of it for the future or for the next season, etc.  This suddenly makes search VERY INTERESTING I think!  I know I’ll be using it to do keyword research even more for my clients!

As we see that many of the search trends are predictable, we are introducing today a new forecasting feature in Insights for Search, along with a new version of the product. The forecasting feature is applied to queries which are identified as predictable see, for instance, basketball or the trends in the Automotive category and then shown as an extrapolation of the historical trends and search patterns.

via Official Google Research Blog: On the predictability of Search Trends.