At the end of April,CC Searchofficially celebrated its first birthday! After releasing the search tool last year onApril 30, we eagerly watched as it was put to use. Now, with a year behind us and over 2.8 million users across 230 countries and territories, we’re gathering and examining search data to better understand what content our users value and how we can serve them better.
Here’s a look at the top 25 queries this past year:
- dog(s)
- cat(s)
- music
- amphibian(s)
- book(s)
- flower(s)
- food
- frog
- car
- computer
- school
- football
- beach
- nature
- people
- basketball
- money
- video
- art
- tree
- space
- soccer
- animals
- fish
- fortnite
Animal lovers and nature buffs
The top two search queries weredogandcat;users were 25% more likely to look for a photo of a dog than a cat. (We found this surprising since the internet was obviously invented for cats…) Other popular queries in the animal family includedamphibian(s),frog,fish, andanimals更普遍。In fact, perusing theAnimal Diversity Web collectionis a great way to get an at-home natural science lesson! Coming in sixth place were searches forflowers, withbeach,nature,tree, andspaceon the list as well. Since we’re all traveling less and staying closer to home, how about living vicariously through imagery on CC Search! Imagine observingthis beautiful butterflywhile out for a hike in nature!
Music, books, and videos
With dogs and cats winning gold and silver, you might be wondering what query won bronze? Well, it wasmusic！这是一个强有力的指示，表明我们的教育和创意用户社区已经准备好使用CC搜索来提供音频内容——我们很高兴地分享我们正在为此努力!然而，这不是一项简单的任务，所以该更新要到今年晚些时候才能提供。在此期间，我们将在CC Search界面中直接构建一个连接到CC授权音频的桥梁，该界面将在未来几个月内可用。(不能等那么久吗?TheFree Music Archive是个不错的选择!)
We also saw plenty of users looking forbooksandvideos. Once we provide support for audio search, we’ll move forward with plans to serve up more types of media you can confidently reuse. Until then, we recommend visitingGutenbergfor downloadable versions of books in the public domain, orLibriVoxif you’d like to be read to instead.
We serve educators
Lucky number eleven on the list is none other than the queryschool.We were not surprised to see that school was a top search query, given that one-third of our users identify as “educators,” and one quarter as “students.” Recently, a CC Search user, who is a professor at a North American university, told us, “As an educator, I value and am grateful for the free and open exchange of creative efforts and materials, which I believe helps to empower all persons in furthering their education.” We’re glad to be of service, professor!
People, sports, and dancing bananas
Turns out us humans like each other too! Our fifteenth most common search query was none other thanpeople, and we also served up a lot of results for some popular sports, likefootball,basketball, andsoccer. Coming in at number twenty-five isFortnite, and these days, that’s considered an athletic endeavor. If we can’t go outside to play sports together, at least the internet can bring us closer together to look at sports, write about sports, and play electronic sports. (At the very least, we canflosssix feet apart!)
Looking for more CC-licensed 3D models and animations? Check outSketchfab！
Galleries and museums
Coming in the nineteenth place isart. For us, that’s great news! Since the beginning, artistic collections have been a major focus of CC Search, fromThe Metropolitan Museum of Artto theCleveland Museum of Art！在接下来的几周里，我们将揭开一些来自主要文化遗产机构的重要藏品的面纱。Until then, take a look at themuseum collectionswe’ve already made discoverable.
Food, cars, computers, and money
This last batch of queries makes us think thatCC Searchis often used for daydreaming.Who doesn’t want a delicious meal, a fast car, a good computer, and piles of money?With this in mind, we’re challenging you to find us one picture on CC Search that featuresall fourqueries (food,car,computer, andmoney) andtag us on Twitter@creativecommonswith your result. We expect at least one image of someone ordering drive-thru in a Tesla!
This next year ofCC Searchis going to be a big one, and we can’t wait to share some of the exciting updates we’re working on! Be sure to follow theCC Open Source websiteand@cc_opensourcefor regular updates. You can also help fund CC Search by becoming aCC supporter. Thank you!
