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When you sit down to write, where do all the ideas go? Especially the ones you thought of only 15 minutes before. They went to Idea Land. Sometimes they will return, and sometimes they won’t, so you n…
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links for 2008-11-27

Use Logoworks for Your Creative Logo Design

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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.

Make the most out of these rocky economic times by utilizing your staff during idle time for online public relations. In today’s linkbuilding column, “Use Online Public Relations for Link Marketing,” Justilien Gaspard offers some ideas for things you can do to build links and increase sales simultaneously.

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When the ancient Romans tried to defend themselves from Hannibal’s war elephants, they learned that they needed to throw away their old ideas about war and learn to work together. In today’s SEM agency issues column, “Universal Search: The (War) Elephant in the Room,” William Flaiz compares universal search to the war elephants, and notes that search marketers must realize that focusing all efforts in harmony is the only way to properly address the challenges it presents.

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Wordtracker has launched “Keyword Questions,” a free tool that let’s webmasters and SEOs find the specific questions that
people type into search engines. The answers to these questions can provide interesting web copy and could pick up a lot of search traffic.

According to Ken McGaffin, Chief Marketing Officer of Wordtracker, “People have a ton of questions about all sorts of things and people will go straight to a search engine to find the answers. Just enter a keyword and we’ll give you up to 100 questions that people have asked.”

The tool works by pairing the keyword with one of six question words: Who, what, where, when, why and how. It then conducts a broad match from Wordtracker’s database.

For example, someone with a coffee website, could enter “coffee” and find questions like “who invented the coffee maker”, “why use cold water when brewing coffee”, “how to make iced coffee” and “how to clean a coffee pot”.

Or, a flower shop could enter “sorry” and find questions like “how to say sorry to your girlfriend” or “how to say sorry after huge argument.” Hey, this is just an example. I’m happily married.

Or, a website on UFOs might be interested to know that the most popular questions on UFOs include “how to fake UFO photographs” or “how to build a UFO.” Sorry, the tool doesn’t suggest, “Where is Area 51.”

In a press release, McGaffin said, “This is a fun tool that is a great source of inspiration for web content writers. You need never be short of creative ideas again.”

I interviewed Ken at Search Engene Strategies London 2008 in February. And he shared some of the latest trends of search term research back then. And I expect to see him again at SES London this coming February 17-19, 2009, to get an update.

Ken McGaffin, WordTracker, SES London 2008 Keyword Research

Yahoo! Live, a live streaming video product build on Brickhouse, will stop broadcasting December 3, 2008. In a statement on the Yahoo! Live blog, the Keith Thornhill said:

Our mission here on the Brickhouse team is to quickly develop product ideas that can add value to Yahoo! as a whole. To do this effectively we constantly evaluate our early-stage products and sometimes have to make the hard decision to move on, in order to continue exploring new territory and developing new products.

I, for one, will always hold dear a Yahoo! Live memory from this past summer. My family had (finally) just gotten a Nintendo Wii and my daughter and I live broadcasted our earliest Wii Sports matches.

On the other hand, I won’t miss the creepy people who had less than the best intentions with live streaming.

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links for 2008-10-28

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Humor is a great form of content that will give people a reason to link to your content, and help it spread virally. The challenge for most sites is coming up with something funny. In today’s linkbuilding column, “Use Humor for Link Marketing,” Justilien Gaspard offers some ideas that can be used by everyone, regardless of the size of your marketing budget.

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