---
title: Autocompleting the Vendors
date: 2011-01-25T03:40:48Z
modified: 2011-01-25T03:40:48Z
permalink: "https://redmonk.com/sogrady/2011/01/24/autocompleting-the-vendors/"
type: post
status: publish
excerpt: ""
wpid: 4064
categories:
  - Data
timestamp: 2011-01-25T03:40:48Z
tags:
  - Data
---

[![autocomplete_vendors](http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5218/5386553290_ebd53a727a.jpg)

](http://www.flickr.com/photos/sog/5386553290/ "autocomplete_vendors by sogrady, on Flickr")

In December, Very Small Array [posted](http://www.verysmallarray.com/?p=1056) a simple but interesting visualization of Google Autocomplete data called the United States of Autocomplete. The concept was simple: capture the first query Google suggests for each state in the United States. I liked the idea so much I copied it, swapping states for technology vendors. Also, I made the graphics much, much more worse (it’s the best I could do at 10 PM with a public domain map of the US).

The above chart represents the first word Google Search suggests to me after typing in the complete vendor name as of around 9:30 this evening. It’s what people search for most, in other words, in conjunction with the vendor name. The results are more for your entertainment than edification, but there are a few that make you think, and even the truly irrelevant returns – Red Hat _society_, anyone? – have something to say about relative popularity and visibility.

It’s a bit of an eye chart, but a bigger version is [here](http://www.flickr.com/photos/sog/5386553290/sizes/o/) if you’re curious.

Enjoy!

**Disclosure**: just for the sake of form: Adobe, Cisco, Dell, IBM, Microsoft, Rackspace, Red Hat, Salesforce.com, and SAP are RedMonk customers. Amazon, Apple, Google, HP, Intel, Novell, Oracle and VMware are not.