trends in canberra web searches

I am very positive about IPR particularly due to its involvement with Nearmap... but I have a very large risk appetite, and little share market experience (for fools rush in where Angels fear to tread).

Nonetheless, I believe there are some more good signs appearing in the public domain...

During my own research I have been using google trends to analyse search data for the term "Nearmap". Consistent with IPR's statements there has been a solid increase in searches since the beginning of the year.

However, of more interest to me is where the searches are taking place. Up to May the top five cities for searching Nearmap were:

1. Perth, Australia

2. Adelaide, Australia

3. Melbourne, Australia

4. Brisbane, Australia

5. Sydney, Australia

No real suprises except perhaps that Adelaide was in at second as this would reperesent a very high per capita weighting.

Then come June 2010 something a little bit special happens...

1. Perth, Australia

2. Adelaide, Australia

3. Canberra, Australia

4. Melbourne, Australia

5. Brisbane, Australia

6. Sydney, Australia

Note number 3 (with a bullet) Canberra... the very city where the big contracts could be executed from.

Come July Canberra even made it to number 2.

A positive sign I believe, but
1. I do not know how the reliable the google trends data is.
2. google provides no "hard numbers" just relative values eg the difference could be beteween 5 web searches and 10 web searches a month.
3. This is only websearches and not necessarily web traffic, which in turn does necessarily mean deals closed.

Just sharing my thoughts - have a play around here http://www.google.com/trends if you like.

Thanks,

R