This week, Google announced that it is merging its Google Trends and Insights for Search into one Google Trends tool.

From Google’s blog post announcing the move:

Now we are merging Insights for Search into Google Trends, wrapping it all up in a clean new interface to give you a clearer view of what’s on the world’s mind. The new Google Trends now includes features from both products and makes it easier and more intuitive to dig into the data.

Both Google Trends and Insights for Search have been useful tools in the industry for years, offering journalists a way to see popular search terms and compare keywords, respectively.

While each tool has separate and distinct functions, there are benefits to packaging them into one super tool. Here are three reasons journalists will benefit from this update:

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There’s a new tool for local reporters and editors, or those on specific topic or business-related beats, to figure out who the top tweeters are about their beats. Thankfully, you won’t need to hire a social media analyst to track this information down. It’s free and as easy* as crafting a phrase or hashtag you want to know about.

TweetCharts, a new site from Hubspot, does the data crunching for you. Just plug in your phrase or hashtag. It searches the past week’s tweets, and then, pops out lots of pretty charts to show your bosses you’re not just wasting your time tracking or participating in the Twitter conversation. The site explains at a glance who’s talking about the topic and generally, what they’re linking to or how engaged they are in the words you’re looking at.

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BOSTON — This afternoon at the Online News Association conference, Associated Press interactives producer Michelle Minkoff and WNYC’s data news director John Keefe held a hands-on, learn-by-doing session about creating quick data visualizations on a newsroom deadline.

Using free, open source tools and data sets, the barrier to entry for creating usable visualizations is lower than ever.

Michelle showed the audience how to make an interactive chart that graphs crime data using Google Chart Tools. She posted a full tutorial on her website and the downloadable source code for the visualization. Here are the key links you need to build a chart yourself:

• Michelle’s full tutorial
• A sample data set to use
• The source files (.zip)
• The extensive list of links from Michelle and other resources

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Last week, we talked about the Google Chart Wizard that allows you to create detailed charts and graphs. Google now has a new tool called the Public Data Explorer which combines the power of the Google Chart API with publicly available datasets. Here’s an example:

The Google Public Data Explorer uses datasets from organizations like the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, the U.S. Census Bureau, and the Office of Management and Budget from the Executive Office of the President. As you can see in the above chart, data can be filtered and animated across whatever factors are available in the dataset, and even supports geo-location. Organizations can upload their own datasets using an open source XML-based metadata format called the Dataset Publishing Language (DSPL). Example datasets and full documentation about DSPL are located at Google Code.

Visualizations of public data like this can add great context to news stories, and the embedded charts and links update automatically to share the latest data available from the dataset. The Google Public Data Explorer is a Google Labs project, so it is still a work in progress. You can give your feedback at the Google Public Data Explorer Group if you have any feature suggestions.

We’ve talked before about using Google Docs to help build charts and graphs using a simple spreadsheet. But with Google’s newest offering, the Google Chart Wizard, you can build even more robust and dynamic graphs through an easy to use interface with great customization options.

The new wizard allows you to quickly construct graphs from any set of numerical data without deciphering the mystery of the Google Charts API URL syntax. Right now, the wizard is limited to creating line charts, pie charts, bar graphs, radar charts, scatterplots, and more. Here is a quick graph I put together using a random data set:

The great thing about the Google Chart Wizard is the way you can present your chart once you’re done building it. You have the option of sharing the graph using a URL, or you can drop the single line of HTML code it provides you into any content management system. There is even an option to add your graph as a widget using the Google Chart API, which is a great choice for those who want a little more fine-tuned control over the graph’s presentation and functionality.

Aside from charts, you can also create QR codes, which are matrix barcodes that you can scan with your smartphone. The QR code below was generated using the URL for 10,000 Words.

If you need a little inspiration to get you started, than that’s no problem either. The Google Chart Wizard also features a gallery of example graphs so you can get an idea of the sorts of visualizations you can put together using this handy tool.

Create your own graphs today at http://imagecharteditor.appspot.com.