The political world is buzzing today with condolences and reminiscences of Senator Edward Kennedy, and we here at PdF add our respects.
It’s going to be an interesting day to watch how the live web reacts to the news and shapes its importance. So far, judging from Trendistic, my new favorite site for sniffing the zeitgeist, there’s been a huge surge in tweets about Kennedy, which is no surprise. But, at least so far, little indication that many people are interested in how his passing will affect the passage of health care reform, which in many ways was Teddy’s signature issue:
It’s also amazing to look at what search words are trending high over on Google Trends. At least half of the top hundred search terms right now are in some way related to Kennedy, his family or his history. I don’t know if any other news event has so dominated searches on Google. Here’s a screenshot of the top fifty: