The Ice Bucket Challenge has taken this country (and a little bit of Canada) by storm in the past two weeks, as the term went from non-existent to one of the top searches on the Internet.
Here are some facts about the Ice Bucket Challenge, mainly from Google and Google Trends:
1. The ALS Association reports that as of today (Aug. 20), they have received $31.5 million in donations. That compares to $1.9 million during the same time span last year (July 29-Aug. 20). Those numbers include 637,527 new donors.
2. According to Google Trends, the first search for the phrase “ice bucket challenge” was on Tuesday, Aug. 5.
3. Thirteen days later, on Aug. 18 (the most-recent date shown on the data), searches for “ice bucket challenge” are still on the rise.
4. The term “ice bucket challenge” has never shown up in Google Hot Trends, but “ALS” was No. 4 on Aug. 10 and “ALS disease” was No. 5 on Aug. 18.
5. There are 55.9 million Google search results for the term “ice bucket challenge,” a phrase that nobody was searching as recently as two weeks ago.
6. The phrase is most-searched in Boston.
7. There are more than twice as many people searching “ALS” on Google now than at any time in the past 10 years.