December 2008 Archives

Just as Obama's internet-savvy campaign helped organize younger voters, social media underpins the political current. The YouTube sensation of Iraqi journalist Muntadar al-Zaidi paying the ultimate disrespect to Bush during his final presidential visit to Iraq has made its way into Letterman's comedy, and is now real estate for contextual ads by Coke, not to mention Zappos.

Zappos corporate blogs say nothing about their viral and primetime PR, although a couple of Twitter posts acknowledge the social media effect. If this publicity helps ease the blunt of the recession upon the top shoe e-tailer, maybe it can rehire the 8% recently laid off. Zappos' December site statistics will be interesting to see once posted.

Google search results for the sole word "shoe" have the famous YouTube video sharing first page organic results with Zappos.com. Even a shoe-lovers website has jumped on the viral bandwagon, featuring al-Zaidi in a main page editorial complemented with an explanation of Arabic shoe etiquette. What could have left a bad taste in the mouths of shoe retailers became a godsend in internet eyeballs. At over 10 million views and growing, viral flash games and websites are still circulating around the world wide web.

Demonstrating once again how viral video can be a gold mine of clicks for the right company.

Proving once again that MySpace caters to the teen demographic, MySpace released its own top search trends of 2008. In keeping with the default friend categorization on a MySpace profile, the social network's list features a "Top 8" of various categories rather than the usual top ten. With a teen horror movie, pop singers and a game app being the most-searched terms within the social medium, this list is diametrically opposite the Zeitgeist list. Given that the top MySpace search term is also the top MySpace movie trailer (Twilight), Hollywood can take note for its PG-13 crowd: Flood MySpace.com, MySpace Music, and MySpace Movies with pre-release banners, trailers, game apps, and music videos.

Note the omission of Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus, and the Jonas brothers. Britney Spears was no. 1 on Yahoo's 2008 list (Miley was 4th). It's not surprising that the usual net searches for Beijing, Sarah Palin, and Barack Obama don't exist here, but where are the other pop stars? Or does this indicate different search behavior for their fans?

You can gauge a nation's mindset by looking at their top search queries. Google's annual Zeitgeist release of web trends reflects a world with similar keystrokes yet local idiosyncrasies.

But for a handful, just about every nation queried for youtube. Social networking sites also topped everyone's top ten. In the United States, facebook beat out myspace, which may surprise you only depending upon the online demographic to which you belong. While we look to log onto Facebook, Brazilians and Indians connect among themselves on orkut. [To get an idea of the effect of social networks in some countries, check out the well-loved Brazilian song "Vou Te Excluir do Meu Orkut" ("I'm going to delete you from my Orkut").]

Futbol & games dominate Spanish & Latin American searches. The economy has several countries looking for jobs. Citizens of Canada and Chile are interested in self. We googled furiously for alternative energy and hybrid cars until the elections when gas prices dropped. For a brief period, we were more fascinated by Sarah Palin than Obama.

The current US economy has us in a practical and reflective state of mind. Google notes the higher interest in comfort foods and do-it-yourself projects, even diy weddings! We're taking it upon ourselves to fix up our homes, progress our lives, and feel good along the way.

Turns out the world thinks quite alike.