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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The phrase “social media” had barely been coined, let alone popularized, when Friendster hit the scene in 2002. The first big social network was ground breaking … until it wasn’t. Now, as the once great site hangs on for life, it’s unplugging the relics of its early life, deleting the memories of its original user base as it reimagines itself and role online.

For years the site has been fighting a — let’s admit it, losing — battle, first to MySpace, then to Facebook, to Twitter, to Flickr, to YouTube, to FourSquare, to ? … well there’s the rub. There are too many social networks already here, as well as those fading and just emerging. At their core they all do the same thing: Connect people to each other’s ideas and allow them to share their personal experiences and interests. That sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Sort of like what journalists strive to do each day by connecting to readers/viewers/listeners with their stories, pictures and videos? Turns out, journalists can learn from social networks, and not just pop culture or breaking news, but also broader lessons about how to do their job. So knowing that all good things have an expiration date, at least on the Internet, here’s what journalists should realize and remember as they tiptoe through social networking topics. Read more