I saw this google product that can be very helpful for businesses and creating products.

http://www.google.com/insights/search/#

You can see what people are searching, what regions are searching for a particular search term. You can compare search volume patterns across specific regions, categories, and time frames.

The below page lists some ways in which you can use the data from Google insights:

http://www.google.com/support/insights//bin/answer.py?answer=96693

Some of them are:

* Choosing advertising messages
* Examining seasonality
* Creating brand associations
* Entering new markets

One interesting study I came across recently was stating that, when comparing linux and ubuntu using the google search trends, they found that the linux searches are decreasing and Ubuntu is increasing. Ubuntu might soon overtake Linux in search trends. This is showing the marketing behind Ubuntu. Now the world is beginning to think that Linux is Ubuntu instead of the fact that Ubuntu is just a flavor (very successful) of Linux.