The mother of all deadlines fast approaches: our new book, SuperFreakonomics, is due to be published on October 20. In the meantime, how about a little contest?
Think of it as a guess-the-number-of-jelly-beans-in-a-jar contest except in this case the jar is infinitely expandable, and the jelly beans don’t yet exist.
Huh?
Let me explain. As I type these words, a Google search of the word “superfreakonomics” yields a tally of 11,000 results. (As with all Google searches, this is something of a phantom number: if you actually go to the end of the list, there are only 278 actual hits.)
How many Google results will the same word yield as of 6:00 a.m. (Eastern time) on Tuesday, November 3, two weeks after the pub date?
The closest guess wins a piece of Freakonomics schwag (which, by that time, will obviously include a signed copy of the new book). Leave your guess in the comments below, one per customer please. We’ll keep the voting open until end of day Friday (tomorrow).
Addendum: To clarify, the guess should reflect the Google tally (i.e., what stands today at 11,000) versus the actual hits.
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22,453,323
873,251 phantom, 221,917 real
989,454
380 000
500 assuming you’re looking at the actual hits and not the phantom number. This includes the 278 hits that already exist. I used trends in Google searches for Freakonomics over time as a guide.
148,888
37,106
11,001, no just kidding, 770,000