Who Controls Language on the Interwebs?

A rose by any new name may be unfindable.

Last week, official Washington began calling the artist formerly known as "swine flu" the "H1N1 flu," as did the World Health Organization. There are very good reasons for this--the virus isn't transmitted by eating pork products, it is hurting the economy, the relationship between pigs and the virus is debatable, it is more accurate to call it by it's scientific name and the government response is based on science, etc. 

That said, people are looking for information on "swine flu" and people are talking about "swine flu." From BlogPulse:

The blue line is the trend for the use of the term "swine flu" in blogs, and the orange trends "H1N1." 

Looking at Google Trends, we see that the change in terminology from "swine flu" to H1N1 was picked up and acknowledged in the news (lower graph), but is not having much impact in general web searches (upper graph). This data is for U.S. searches only.

CDC has said that they were going to work on transitioning their online information to H1N1 from swine. That sounds like a good idea, since we wouldn't want a choice of words interrupting people's ability to find critical health information. 

Takeaway? Use data and trends to find out what people are looking for and build web sites and tools according to data. Help people learn the new terms, but remember that once a meme has legs, it's ingrained in the collective and will not be replaced easily.

In the meantime, wash your hands!, and see CDC for up-to-date information on the H1N1 (swine) flu. 

If you want to track what is happening in the blogosphere the Nielsen BlogPulse is a great resource. Book mark it! Also, Google Trends for what people are looking for. Great FREE sources.