On Tuesday, Yelp co-founder David Galbraith estimated that if the total bandwidth used on Google Searches for Lady Gaga was converted into SMS messages on AT&T, it would cost 10.5 trillion dollars.
According to my calculator-dependent math education: if all 6.7 billion people on the planet made 10,000 texts about Lady Gaga (using 1120 bits per text) at AT&T's rate of $0.20 per message, it would cost 13.3 trillion dollars.
Underestimating by three trillion dollars is forgivable. A scenario in which everyone on the planet makes a text messages is probably the only time that I can say that.
I decided to expand on David's idea and run the figures for the first 10 big-name celebrities and public figures to come across my mind and see how much money it would cost if all of their search-juice from the last year was converted to texts. What I found might surprise you. And it should make you hate your cell phone carrier.