Eurovision song contest predicted by Google

I like Eurovision and I think it’s the most watched song contest in the Europe. Few days ago I got an idea to predict results by googling them.

Eurovision vote rules are simple. Each country can vote for other country in the list except their own. Most voted song get 12 points, second place 10 points, third place 8 points and other songs 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0, 0, 0, …

Each country allows own citizens to vote by SMS or Phone or have juries that do this. My idea is to ask Google from each country about each song and count hits.

For example: For Germany we will ask Google to give results by searching Author Song Title with restriction website from Germany during period 1 January till today.

Build results for all songs sort and give them points.

For quick testing of this idea I’ve build a small program that does this easily. You can download Google prediction and change queries.

Here are my results on date 09 April 2006:

1. DE  “Texas Lightning” “No, no never” = 351
2. BE  “Kate Ryan” “Je t’adore” = 274
3. ES  “Las Ketchup” “Bloody Mary” = 241
4. FI  Lordi “Hard rock hallelujah” = 220
5. SE  Carola “Evighet” = 174
6. RU  “Dima Bilan” “Never let you go” = 173
7. CH  Six4one “If we all give a little” = 161
8. PL  “Ich Troje” “Follow my Heart” = 93
9. GR  “Anna Vissi” “Everything” = 64
10. FR  Virginie Pouchin “Vous c’est nous” = 59
11. NO  “Christine Guldbrandsen” “Alvedansen” = 53
12. HR  Severina “Moja štikla” = 49
13. BG  “Mariana Popova” “Let me cry” = 43
14. DK  Sidsel Ben Semmane “Twist of Love” = 40
15. SI  “Anžej Dežan” “Plan B” = 39
16. LT  “LT United” “We are the winners” = 23
17. UA  “Tina Karol” “I am your queen” = 20
18. RO  “Mihai Traistariu” “Tornero” = 12
19. UK  “Daz Sampson” “Teenage life” = 12
20. BA  “Hari Mata Hari” = 12
21. TR  “Sibel Tüzün” “Super Star” = 12
22. EE  “Sandra Oxenryd” “Through my Window” = 11
23. LV  Cosmos “I hear your heart” = 4
24. IE  “Brian Kennedy” “Every song is a cry for love” = 3
25. PT  “Nonstop” “Coisas de nada” = 3
26. IL  “Eddie Butler” “Ze hazman” = 0
27. MT  “Fabrizio Faniello” “I do” = 0
28. MD  Arsenium “Natalia Gordienko” Loca = 0
29. AL  “Luiz Ejlli” “Zjarr e ftohte” “Cold fire” = 0
30. AD  Jennifer “Sense tu” = 0
31. AM  Andre “Without your Love” = 0
32. BY  “Polina Smolova” “Mama” = 0
33. CY  “Annette Artani” “Why angels cry” = 0
34. MK  “Elena Risteska”"Ninanajna” = 0
35. IS  “Silvía Nótt” “Til hamingju ísland” = 0
36. MC  “Sevérine Ferrer” “La Coco-Dance” = 0
37. AN  “Treble” “Amambanda” = 0

Detailed results you can get from this eurovisionresults.txt file.