Here's a neat new tool to help you beef up the market analysis section of your business plan. Tuesday Google launched Insights for Search, a new site that's a spin-off of Google Trends. Type in a particular search term—social networking, for instance—and the site will show you the frequency with which that word or phrase has been searched over time. Even better, you can filter the results by location, or over a time range. That means you can roughly find out what the regional interest is on a search for "Britney Spears bikini" and when it was most popular (Utah, circa late '06). The same is true of key words related to your start-up. If the results are in your favor, it could bolster your business plan by demonstrating that your type of business is increasing in popularity.

The site has other useful applications for small businesses who want to track the success of an ad campaign (you can check how many times your business name or slogan has been Googled, for example). And if nothing else, it's a fun toy to play with. Just don't try typing your name into the search field. It's kind of depressing.