I'm thrilled to see this launched. This is my 20% project. I implemented the "Ngram compositions" which allows you to do math on the ngrams.
It let's you see cool things like the compoundification of "applesauce" over the 20th century:
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=applesauce%2F%28applesauce%2Bapple+sauce%29&year_start=1900&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=
I'll post a few more of my favorite examples individually.
It let's you see cool things like the compoundification of "applesauce" over the 20th century:
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=applesauce%2F%28applesauce%2Bapple+sauce%29&year_start=1900&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=
I'll post a few more of my favorite examples individually.
We've launched the Ngram Viewer 2.0! See the usage of phrases over the centuries.
http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2012/10/ngram-viewer-20.html
http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2012/10/ngram-viewer-20.html
Ngram Viewer 2.0

Matthew Gray - 2012-10-18 11:34:45-0400
:) Those words do seem perfectly cromulent. Thanks!
Jeremy Hoffman - 2012-10-18 17:41:01-0400 - Updated: 2012-10-18 17:41:16-0400
Nice one, +Matthew Gray! Google <3 Linguists. Don't you listen to XKCD (http://xkcd.com/114/).