Glimpse Insights

Articles on the intersection of trends, data, and consumer behavior

Why It's Illegal to Take Photos of the Eiffel Tower at Night

It's illegal to take a photo of the Eiffel Tower at night and use it for commercial purposes: the lighting arrangement itself is intellectual property. This illustrates some of the surprising complexities involved in licensing and creating media, and it’s a source of demand for clever licensing hacks for stock photos. The growth of free stock photo sites like Unsplash means there’s more supply of free images, where users aren’t as explicitly purchasing the rights as they did before. This means

Why The U.S. Government Subsidizes Colombian Flower Farms

One of the biggest sources of flowers is the result of a regulatory arbitrage: the US government subsidizes Colombian farmers with hundreds of millions of dollars each year to encourage them to plant crops other than coca leaves, as coca leaves make their way into the US in the form of cocaine. The subsidy is so significant that nearly 70% of flowers sold in the US originate from Colombia. At peak season, almost 30 cargo planes of flowers are shuttled from Colombia to the U.S. per day. The flo

The Top 10 Google Trends Alternatives in 2023

Google Trends is great but it often isn't enough. Here are 10 free alternatives to Google Trends that we use on a daily basis. When compiling this list of alternatives to Google Trends, we considered everything from data accuracy and coverage, to usability and price. We also took into account user reviews and have included the tools voted as the best overall Google Trends alternatives, including Google Ngram, Semrush, Pinterest Trends, SimilarWeb, and more. 1. Google Trends Supercharged We bu

Consumers Are Eating More Chicken than Ever Before

Today, the low-margin, cost-conscious grocery store industry uses rotisserie chickens as a loss-leader product. Many Americans visit the grocery store to buy rotisserie chickens on a weekly basis, and leave with other, higher margin products too. In 2017, a whopping one in every two Americans bought a rotisserie chicken. The best show of rotisserie chicken’s status as a loss leader is that they are cheaper than uncooked chickens. Because they're a popular product, they tend to bring in foot tra

The 100 Most Searched People on Google in 2023

Last updated: September 15, 2023  –  Every week, we create a list of the most searched people on Google by filtering through 25+ billion keywords. Below we share the full list plus the most googled person in the world for the past 3 years. Highlights * The most searched person on Google today: Taylor Swift (Pop superstar Taylor Swift is in the spotlight for being the biggest winner in the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards. She won a record nine trophies including artist of the year, video and song

The Rise of Electric School Buses – It's Not What You Think

The largest public transportation system in America is not one of trains or subways; it’s school buses. Every day, nearly half a million school buses move 26 million kids to and from school. And while the rise of electric school buses might seem like it’s a story about transportation, it’s in fact a fascinating glimpse into an energy arbitrage business merely in its infancy. It starts with buses’ lack of utilization. While commercial airplane utilization is nearly constant, school bus utilizat

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