Search Results

Archive for Search Results

You are browsing the search results.

Christmas Gifts Ideas from Lycos Before Thanksgiving Day

Okay, I understand that we’re all trying to “give a jolt” to the economy. But I was still surprised today when Lycos provided a list of Christmas gift ideas two days before Thanksgiving Day. Aren’t we all supposed to wait until Black Friday?

Nevertheless, for shoppers who like planning ahead — or for online retailers and etailers looking for what will be hot this holiday season — Lycos just announced its ninth annual list of the most popular toys and video games, based on web search activity.

(For a complete list and commentary of the Lycos Top Toys and Video Games of 2008, go to the Lycos 50. You can also voice your opinion on this year’s list, and weigh in on weekly Internet trends and pop culture on the Lycos 50 Blog or follow the Lycos 50 on Twitter.)

It shouldn’t come as a shock that Apple’s iPod holds the top spot as the #1 most-searched for toy this holiday season. But this year, the Apple frenzy includes hot-searched items like the iTouch and iPod Nano.

Harry Potter, at #11, makes a fifth consecutive appearance in 2008, with Harry Potter games, books and DVDs dominating Harry Potter-themed searches.

New in 2008 is KOTA, the Triceratops Dinosaur (#15), generating more search interest than Fisher Price’s New Elmo Live (#19). Meanwhile, not so hot in 2008 are Hannah Montana-related toy items, which made a big splash in 2007, but fail to make this year’s list.

Spongebob Squarepants (#14) takes over as the top licensed character-themed toy of 2008. Spongebob was last seen on the Lycos Top Toy list in 2005. And when it comes to dolls, Barbie (#6) continues to reign, extending her run on the annual Lycos list of Top Toys and Video Games to nine consecutive years of appearing in the Top 10. But there’s not enough data on Caribou Barbie to see if that will be a big hit this year — let alone in 2012.

Gaming consoles see a big resurgence in search popularity in 2008, with the Nintendo Wii (#10) capturing the most search interest, generating 25% more search activity than the Xbox 360 (#12) and Playstation 3 (#13). Also seeing a resurgence in 2008 are old school classics like Monopoly (#17), despite the current housing market.

Five of the top 25 toys in 2008 originate from the popular world of anime including Naruto (#3), Pokemon (#4), Dragonball (#5), Inuyasha (#7) and Gundam (#16). Meanwhile, one new toy making the 2008 list may be unfamiliar to most adults, but if search activity is any indication, expect the Bakugan Battle Brawlers (#24) to be flying off the shelves this holiday season.

On the video game front, the massive multi-player game RuneScape (#1) scores big with web users for the fourth consecutive year as the most-searched video game of 2008, while Final Fantasy makes its first appearance on the list since 2005, with Final Fantasy XIII (#3). Also racking up points online, making first-ever appearances on the top video games list, are war-themed games including Call of Duty: World at War (#9) and Gears of War 2 (#14), while Guitar Hero World Tour (#8) and Wii Fit (#15) are the most popular Wii-themed games based on web searches in 2008.

Also new in 2008 are Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 games Fable 2 (#17), Fallout 3 (#18), Street Fighter IV (#10), Dead Space (#19), Far Cry 2 (#22) and BioShock (#25). This also marks the fourth consecutive year the Madden football-themed games fail to make Lycos’s Top Toys and Video Games list.

As for me, I don’t do any Christmas shopping until the very last minute. That way, I don’t have to figure where to hide presents where my three kids (or wife) can find them before December 24th. Yep, when I say “last minute Christmas shopping” I mean last minute shopping. You’d be surprised how simple decisions are on Christmas eve.

TNS Unveils Next Generation of Online Advertising Monitoring Tools

TNS has launched the next generation of its online advertising monitoring tools. The TNS Digital Suites combines cookie tracking with the TNS 6th Dimension Panel for what they say is a unique analysis of online ad consumption. TNS says current tools overestimate audience sizes, but that their updated online ad tool provides target audience insight with little interference to the user experience.

Mike Saxon, Senior Vice President, Brand and Communications, TNS, explains the need for new measurement and monitoring systems, “For digital advertising, current tools are not meeting the industry demands because the fundamental relationship between advertising and the media that carries it has changed. TNS Digital Suite surveys our panelists, not site visitors, delivering the same kind of accountability and rigorous analysis for online advertising that our customers expect for traditional advertising.”

TNS is touting the benefits of the new tool as:

No more unpopular pop-up surveys
Control for cookie deletion, capturing ad exposure on multiple computers (home/work/school) for each panelist
Accurate ad effectiveness measures for the target audience, using the 6th Dimension panelists profiles (over 150 panelists characteristics)
Advanced analysis through longer surveys (up to 30 minutes long against 7-8 minutes)
Surveys taken at the convenience of the panelists instead of the current proximate surveys which occur immediately after ad exposure
Analysis available based on frequency and time since last exposure

What do you think? Leave a comment.

Twitter Updates for 2008-11-11

links for 2008-11-10: Twitter Updates for 2008-11-09 Find Legitimate Home Based Business links for .. http://tinyurl.com/4neog2 #
New Blog Post - links for 2008-11-10:
Twitter Updates for 2008-11-09
Find Legiti.. http://tinyurl.com/3v5ra7 #
New Blog Post - Twitter Updates for 2008-11-10:
Understanding Fibromyalgia Remedies.. http://tinyurl.com/4ybd8e #
Twitter Updates for 2008-11-10: Understanding Fibromyalgia Remedies Posted By : Valerie Balandra: F.. http://tinyurl.com/4geq8f #
New Article [...]

Where Is My Narrator?

You’ve sat down; mapped out your plot, identified your characters, now it’s time to write.
I always go for the unrestricted write first; you never know where complete freedom takes you. But once…
More: continued here
where is my narrator

Writing With True Grit

Many people remember the Western Movie starring John Wayne, TRUE GRIT. This article explores Writing with True Grit. Am I talking genre, language, characters? The truth is the gentlest, emotional sto…
More: continued here
writing with true grit

New Campaign Management and Editorial Updates for Microsoft adCenter

Microsoft adCenter has released a slew of updates for the fall to aid you in your paid search campaigns. The updates include:

Campaign Management: ability to pause and resume ads and keywords, geo-targeting enhancements, and improved performance reporting on the Ads page
Editorial Improvements: faster reviews, dynamic feedback about why ads and keywords were disapproved, and inline notification when dynamic text causes your ads to exceed character limits
User Management: if previously you were only able to have one user, now you can create multiple account users
Content Ads (U.S. only): get keyword bid suggestions and performance estimates for your content ads

What do you think of the updates? Let us know in the comments.

Link to a Point of Time Within a YouTube Video

Major hat tip to TechCrunch for sharing with the world a way to link to a certain time point within a video on YouTube.

Take for example this video of a clip from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=p1d19wV1GZQ

If you wanted to share the link but have the video start 56 seconds in where the film cuts away from Ginger Rogers in the Senate Gallery to Jimmy Stewart’s character speaking and barely standing as part of a filibuster, then you would simply add:

#t=0m56s

Those aren’t random letters and numbers. Put the minute number before the letter ‘m’ and the seconds number before the letter ’s’ to direct people to the portion of the video you desire.

Now the link is

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=p1d19wV1GZQ#t=0m56s

How to Type Your Characters

Have you ever read a story with a good plot, but you went away feeling that something was incomplete? In all probability, the author failed to type his characters adequately and the result was a pack …
More: continued here
how to type your characters

Google Launches Facts Site About Yahoo Search Ad Partnership

In Google’s quest to make sure its search advertising deal with Yahoo goes through, it has added yet another defense to its arsenal: a new facts site. If it sounds political, that’s because it is. The Department of Justice opened an official investigation into the deal months ago. It turns out that when the largest search engine teams up with the second largest search engine to combine advertising, it raises antitrust issues!

On the homepage, Google doesn’t waste any time getting to the three major talking points it touts in support of the deal:

This is a non-exclusive deal that will strengthen Yahoo!.
Ad prices will continue to be set by competitive auction.
The deal is win-win for consumers, advertisers and publishers: more and better ads.

On the right hand side is a link to an in-the-tank New York Times article that drinks extremely potent Kool-aid by practically copying and pasting a previous Google blog post supporting the deal.

Underneath that are quotes from rather large advertisers who also support the deal.

But those who have the most to lose from the deal are small businesses and web entrepreneurs who, rightly or wrongly, have built their success on Google. They fear a sharp increase in prices once the deal goes through.

Google assures that hardly anything will change, save for Adsense ads showing up on Yahoo. They also point to their relationship with Ask.com as proof that the marketplace will remain competitive.

But Ask, despite its slight growth, is not Yahoo. And when it comes to politicking, people have been burned far too often by broken promises. Plus, websites have also been burned by changing algorithms and vague policies.

Right now, in the midst of a significant economic prices, people are looking for stability. And they’re not finding it in huge companies with enormous, quick growth. The housing market is certainly different from the search market, but with sensitive emotions running high, Google just seems insensitive right now, another characteristic of companies “too big to fail.”

I don’t know what they hope is the outcome of this site. Do they hope for a groundswell of support and grassroots letter writing campaigns on their behalf? I just don’t see that happening.

Google needs to continue its lobbying and legal advocacy with the Department of Justice. But unless Google wants to suddenly become more transparent on their algorithms and site penalties, then they should just leave the little guy alone in this effort.

adCenter Introduces Dynamic Text Insertion

Microsoft’s adCenter is introducing Dynamic Text Insertion into its offering.

Similar to using {keyword} insertion, Dynamic Text Insertion works by using these placeholders: placeholders {param1}, {param2} and {param3}.

adCenter gave four tips on how it works:

If submitting keywords via a spreadsheet – Dynamic Text should be placed in the ‘Dynamic Text {param2}’ column
If submitting keywords via Microsoft adCenter click into the relevant ‘campaign’ and ‘ad group’ and then once you’ve reached the ‘keywords’ tab, click on the ‘edit keywords’ button./li>
Alter {param1}, {param2} and {param3} as appropriate. The ‘Bulk Edit’ function can be used by ticking next to the keyword parameters you wish to edit and then clicking ‘Bulk Edit’.
{param1} is typically used for destination URLs as it offers more characters with which to ensure the link is as detailed as possible. {param2} and {param3} can be used to include as much of the keyword and other engaging information (e.g. price points) as possible. The bulk editing function makes it really easy to update your dynamic text when required.