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"  Don&amp;#039;t tell the Chinese, but Google can see into the future. Sorta. If the search giant&amp;#039;s real-time Trends feature is our modern zeitgeist, then it might just be the only judge a popularity contest will ever need again. So don&amp;#039;t tell Ellen and Simon, either, but R.J. Pittman, a director of product management and possibly the greatest Googler known to man, has seen the American Idol winner coming for a couple years straight. &amp;quot;It was tracking pretty much right on with the voters,&amp;quot; Pittman says. &amp;quot;One of the areas where it does get interesting is with the award shows and contests that are people-driven.&amp;quot; Well if there were ever a people-driven popularity contest disguised as an award show, it&amp;#039;s the Golden Globes, the people behind which have been accused of &amp;quot;sycophancy, rank amateurism and corruption&amp;quot; \u2014 not to mention suicide. Sure enough, when Pittman&amp;#039;s team ran historical Google data for Esquire.com this week, they found that the last two films to take the Globe for top drama \u2014 Slumdog Millionaire and Babel \u2014 led their fellow best-picture nominees in search volume each year, both globally and in those countries with the most voters. &amp;quot;Obviously Google doesn&amp;#039;t have the ability to track searches that the Hollywood Foreign Press has done explicitly, but it&amp;#039;s pretty insightful if you look back,&amp;quot; Pittman says. This year, of course, the Golden Globes have a global phenomenon on their hands: Even with a later release date than competition like Inglourious Basterds, Precious, and The Hurt Locker, James Cameron&amp;#039;s Avatar was so popular in 2009 that it&amp;#039;s so-called Search Volume Index was 7.5 times larger than Slumdog at its peak. &amp;quot;But you have to bear in mind that typically there is a bend to Google searches that tech-savvy people are using us more often \u2014 especially for a tech-savvy movie,&amp;quot; Pittman insists. &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;d almost, in this case, have to discount that.&amp;quot; So what does the best-picture race look like without Avatar and its technology bias? It looks good for Precious: Wait a second: A small film about an illiterate teenager is going to knock off Clooney, Iraq, the Holocaust, and the soon-to-be-biggest film of all time? &amp;quot;Well, a lot of times people do slight misspellings \u2014 and you&amp;#039;ve gotta look at Inglorious Basterds the way Quentin Tarantino spelled it,&amp;quot; Pittman argues. &amp;quot;Technically, we should kind of combine those two as the sort of anomaly we had with Avatar.&amp;quot; Turn him into the literate one, and Tarantino&amp;#039;s got a lot more friends around the world than Clooney, the grunts, and the teenager combined: The way the world&amp;#039;s searches tell it, then, those stylish Nazi hunters are running neck and neck with the movie that changed everything \u2014 variations on the Basterds title puts its movie-related popularity closer to Avatar than anyone might have imagined, especially in voter-loaded regions. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m not sure that when you get into the qualitative aspects of it that you could just make the call, but I&amp;#039;m putting my bet somewhere between Inglourious Basterds and Avatar,&amp;quot; Pittman declared, adding that &amp;quot;given how much bigger the jump is of Avatar over the rest of the pack, it&amp;#039;s a little bit more of a toss-up.&amp;quot; But don&amp;#039;t call this a two-horse race just yet. Of all five films nominated in the drama category, only The Hurt Locker returned a rising related search term featuring the words &amp;quot;golden globe&amp;quot; \u2014 and it rose fast enough to literally jump off Google&amp;#039;s charts as a &amp;quot;breakout&amp;quot; keyword. Pittman attributes the jump to Google News searches after &amp;quot;an unexpected nomination piqued everybody&amp;#039;s curiosity&amp;quot; but, Idol expert that he is, says the independent war film could benefit from &amp;quot;the Susan Boyle factor&amp;quot; that he thinks helped Slumdog last awards season. Turns out, the Googling masses who control the zeitgeist and the critical masses who control the trophies might be looking for the same thing in their twenty-first century search for what &amp;quot;best&amp;quot; means anymore.  &amp;quot;There&amp;#039;s that aspect of human nature where I think we always love to root for the underdog. For example, people love startup companies in technology when they&amp;#039;re small and do something really cool, and they get big \u2014 and governments try to sanction them and restrict them \u2014 and you&amp;#039;re not as well liked anymore,&amp;quot; Pittman says. &amp;quot;But it&amp;#039;s that phase when you&amp;#039;re the little business that could \u2014 and that&amp;#039;s what the indie film category really brings us: a great performance that is not enhanced in any way by its budget.&amp;quot; Definitely don&amp;#039;t tell that to the Chinese. Or James Cameron. EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE GOLDEN GLOBES:  The Big Problem with the Golden Globes No One&amp;#039;s Talking About  AVATAR: Why It Changes Movies and What Sam Worthington Thinks   INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS: Video of Basterds Behaving Badly and More   UP IN THE AIR: Behind the Scenes with Jason Reitman and Vera Farmiga   THE HURT LOCKER: We Called It in 2008!  BEST COMEDY: Why It&amp;#039;s Okay to Like Julie &amp;amp;amp; Julia and (500) Days of Summer   RED CARPET: Esquire&amp;#039;s 2010 Golden Globes Best Dressed Men Awards   "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/interviews/a6907/google-golden-globes-results-2010-011610/>