Google will eventually provide an open application programming interface for its Trends analysis tool, allowing users to embed the tool in their applications, or download data from the application for personal use, a company official said. Marissa Mayer, vice president of search products and user experience at Google, would not provide timelines for when the search vendor might open up the API for Trends, which tallies Google Web searches for the terms users enter relative to the total number of searches done on Google.
However, she noted the company"s fondness for APIs, as well as Trends users" requests to be able to put data culled from Trends in a spreadsheet and have the ability to manipulate it. For example, users might be able to create a spreadsheet comparing Trends data from present and previous years. "While I can"t [give] particular dates for such a launch, I do believe that we will be making an API available so you can take the Trends product and embed it and use the data," Mayer said during a Web cast tutorial on the application Dec. 4.