Simon Rogers

Data + Birds = Beauty

Birdwatching is getting really popular: 96 million people in the US are birders and that produces a lot of Search data. And that means there is a lot of potential for beautiful data visuals (a great example is Jer Thorp's work in the field). So, when Nadieh Bremer told…

So, I have this book coming out in May: WHAT WE ASK GOOGLE. It's a real family portrait of who we are after two decades and counting of search data. It's about what we can see through this most honest of datasets.

Find out more and pre-order it here: whatweaskgoogle.blog

We love our pets so much we get metaphysical. "Does my dog know... that I love them?" is a top search. We also ask "Does my dog know I'm pregnant?" (Spoiler: They probably do). 🐶

Pre-order WHAT WE ASK GOOGLE here: whatweaskgoogle.blog

New podcast alert: Data journalism in the face of ICE and subzero temperatures in MN MaryJo Webster⁠ is data editor at the Minnesota Star Tribune. She joins Alberto, Scott and Simon to talk about her team’s ongoing coverage of federal immigration troops deployed in Minnesota. They discuss analyzing data in a breaking news environment, and what reporters in other places can learn from the Star Tribune’s approach. ⁠Subscribe to the Minnesota Star Tribune⁠ to read more of their coverage. Work mentioned in the episode: ⁠Homeland Security presence in Minnesota dwarfs Twin Cities’ largest police forces⁠ ⁠Wave of immigrants file lawsuits to fight ICE detention⁠

New podcast alert: Data journalism in the face of ICE and subzero temperatures in MN

MaryJo Webster⁠ is data editor at the Minnesota Star Tribune. She joins Alberto, Scott and Simon to talk about her team’s ongoing coverage of federal immigration troops deployed in Minnesota. They discuss…

New pages from ‘What We Ask Google’ See sample pages from the upcoming book What We Ask Google, with illustrations by Nigel Holmes

Only a few months until publication! See sample pages from the upcoming book What We Ask Google, with illustrations by Nigel Holmes

Did you know "How to help a bee" spikes in the UK every June? 🐝 It might be the most British search ever. It’s proof that we are constantly trying to be better, kinder citizens of the planet. #WhatWeAskGoogle

whatweaskgoogle.blog

Happy New Year! 🎆 Search data proves we are creatures of rhythm. "Diet" and "Gym" spike every January. But so does "divorce lawyers." We want to reinvent ourselves. My new book What We Ask Google tracks these rhythms of our lives. Pre-order: whatweaskgoogle.blog

New podcast episode: Data storytelling in 2026 As a new year begins, we reflect on the state of data journalism. We discuss our dataviz favorites from 2025 and what Alberto, Scott and I are working on in 2026. What will happen in data visualisation and journalism this year?

New podcast episode: Data storytelling in 2026

As a new year begins, we reflect on the state of data journalism. We discuss our dataviz favorites from 2025 and what Alberto, Scott and I are working on in 2026. What will happen in data visualisation and journalism this year?

Want to know what the world cares about? We just released our annual #YearinSearch. And thanks to AI in @Google search, the way we ask questions is changing. (And yes, that includes “What’s the deal with 6-7?”).

Explore the lists and video → trends.withgoogle.com/year-in-sear...

New podcast episode: "Launching the Trans News Initiative" goes inside a new way to see media reports as an interactive #dataviz
creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/...

NEW PODCAST EPISODE: We go inside the award-winning data journalism operation at The Straits Times

Not since Ross Perot’s famous TV presentations using cardboard charts have politicians used charts so much. This week, Philip Bump joins Scott and Simon to talk about it, and how AI will impact data journalism

Probably the most fun project our team gets to work on each year! It's Frightgeist time, an exploration fo the top trending Halloween costumes in 2025. Pro tip: have the volume turned up!

frightgeist.withgoogle.com

How data storytelling has changed

New podcast: what is data journalism today? Data analysis is at an inflection point, with new technologies entering the field, and increasingly more practitioners working outside of journalism. This episode, Alberto Scott and myself reflect on how we got into data…

How Richard Scarry taught me everything I know about visual storytelling On the 60th anniversary of Busy Busy World, what we can all learn from a children’s illustrator My grandparents built a boat, and sailed around the world on it. Grandad had been a bricklayer,…

Our desire to be serious and be taken seriously sometimes gets in the way of something even more important. Scarry understood the power of using fun to explain things that are complicated. This is how we can learn from that today.

simonrogers.net/2025/09/01/h...

What We Ask Google by Simon Rogers: 9798217176984 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books Ever wondered what goes through other people’s minds—their silly questions, their inner anxieties, hopes, and dreams? In What We Ask Google, Simon Rogers explores insights from the world’s...

COMING SOON: my new book about how we search and what that says about us. It is about why I feel optimistic about who we are. Insights from the world’s biggest dataset: an epic snapshot, two decades long and counting, of our collective brain.

www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/798252...

Take the WNBA Search Fan Quiz Which WNBA team’s fans are you most like?

Check out our latest interactive: find out which WNBA team you search like.

Props to Annanya Raghavan and the Polygraph team caitlyn ralph and Matt Daniels

goo.gle/wnbasearchfanquiz

Check out our latest podcast episode, where we chat about the latest Outlier conference and what it says about where we are

New pod episode: Finding Ourselves in Historic Data “40 Acres and a Lie” tells the true story behind the Civil War–era “40 acres and a mule” program. It was the result of over two years of painstaking research by Alexia Fernández Campbell, April Simpson and Pratheek Rebala. The project won a Sigma Award and a Philip Meyer Data Journalism Award, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in explanatory reporting. Alexia, April and Pratheek join Alberto, Scott and Simon to share their research process in detail. They explain how they used historical data to identify breaking news, and how genealogical tools helped them find living descendants of those impacted by the program.

NEW: in the latest episode of the Data Journalism Podcast, we chat with the award-winning creators of 40 Mules And A Lie about how to turn history into data

Datapocalypse! Are we losing our public data?

Listen to the latest episode >> Cheryl Phillips⁠ is Hearst Professional in Residence at Stanford University’s journalism program, and founder of ⁠Big Local News⁠, which empowers journalists with data – and has twice been on Pulitzer prize winning news…

Data+Love+why it matters in the age of AI One of my favourite data podcasts is Data+Love, hosted by the brilliant Zach Bowders. We chatted for the latest episode about why people should care about data, how to make it human and why it matters. Check it out!

Data+Love+why it matters in the age of AI

One of my favourite data podcasts is Data+Love, hosted by the brilliant Zach Bowders. We chatted for the latest episode about why people should care about data, how to make it human and why it matters. Check it out!

Great work by Spiegel, with Trends data partnership from Leslie Luenberger on our team

Hiding from a rainy walk

📣 New podcast alert! 📣 We chat with Chiqui Esteban⁠, Design & Art Director at the Washington Post Opinion section in the latest episode, with new co-host Scott Klein

this is exactly why San Francisco has an auxiliary high pressure water system, gravity fed reservoirs, and street cisterns, and salt water manifolds to pull in water from
the bay…

“independent of the domestic water supply, built solely for the purpose of firefighting”

sf-fire.org/our-organiza...

First day of teaching data journalism @medillschool.bsky.social today and we started with visualizing data using Lego

In art and literature, "criticism" doesn't mean "pointing out flaws." It's something bigger and more interesting than a referee calling fouls. I think we should have the same ambitions for data visualization criticism!

“I Have Lost Everything”: The Toll of Cities’ Homeless Sweeps Cities often take belongings — including important documents and irreplaceable mementos — when they conduct sweeps of homeless encampments. ProPublica gave notecards to people across the country so th...

With today’s news about the jump in the number of homeless people, this @propublica interactive story released today is even more timely.

The Toll of Cities’ Homeless Sweeps

I believe such technical work is key to achieving our mission — making data easier for everyone to access and use.

But it is extremely hard to find funding for technical work.

If you’d like to support us, we would very much appreciate if you support our non-profit work: ourworldindata.org/donate

See how every judge voted for the 100 best male footballers in 2024 This year 197 judges took part and here we give you the chance to see how every single point was awarded

What I know about football (soccer to our American friends) you could write on the back of a tiny stamp...

...but if it's your thing HERE is a list of every male player ever to have received a Guardian top 100 ranking...happy Xmas football fans ⚽️🎁!!

www.theguardian.com/football/202...