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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.

Google announced early this morning that they have updated their Site Search product to provide for on demand indexing of your site. What this means is that if you are using Google’s Site Search feature to provide visitors to your web site with a tool to search your site, you can always keep that on site search tool up to date. It is important to note that this new tool does NOT provide on demand indexing for your site in Google’s general index.

Nonetheless, this is a very cool tool, so let’s walk through a quick scenario. Imagine that you have a site where you have added a substantial amount of new content. Perhaps you have added 100 pages of new articles and data to the site. Prior to this announcement, you would have had to wait for the Googlebot to come along and find those changes, and for them to be incorporated in the index before your Site Search would be able to search on that new content.

Now, with today’s announcement, you can go into the configuration screen for your Site Search, request on demand indexing, and a fresh crawl will be done of your entire site. This data is then made available to users who use Site Search on your site, in real time.

This is a really neat enhancement, ensuring that you can always offer users a full and robust search function on your site, even immediately after you have made massive changes.

Last night I spoke with Nitin Mangtani, the lead product manager for Google Enterprise Search, and he indicated that the new functionality would not be possible without Google’s cloud computing architecture. Basically, the index for your Site Search is unique in nature.

If there was only one copy of that index (perhaps on a Google server near your web site’s hosting location), people all over the world would have to access that server (causing potentially large latencies) to get the data from that index. The cloud computing architecture used by Google results in your unique index being distributed across the globe, and eliminates those latencies.

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Despite some popularly held ideas to the contrary, viral campaigns don’t need to be massive to be successful. You can have a small campaign that has a big impact in your industry or community. In today’s linkbuilding column, “Viral Link Building: Size Doesn’t Always Matter,” Justilien Gaspard explains that the power of viral marketing for link building comes from going after a targeted audience.

» Full story

There’s one book every search engine marketer will be reading this fall:

Planet Google: One Company’s Audacious Plan to Organize Everything We Know.

Based on unprecedented access he received to the “Googleplex,” New York Times columnist Randall Stross takes readers deep inside Google. His revelations demystify the strategy behind the company’s recent flurry of bold moves, all driven by the pursuit of a business plan unlike any other: to become the indispensable gatekeeper of all the world’s information, the one-stop destination for all our information needs.

Will Google succeed? And what are the implications of a single company commanding so much information and knowing so much about us?

As ambitious as Google’s goal is, with 68 percent of all Web searches (and growing), profits that are the envy of the business world, and a surplus of talent, the company is, Stross shows, well along the way to fulfilling its ambition, becoming as dominant a force on the Web as Microsoft became on the PC.

Google isn’t just a superior search service anymore. In recent years it has launched a dizzying array of new services and advanced into whole new businesses, from the introductions of its controversial Book Search and the irresistible Google Earth, to bidding for a slice of the wireless-phone spectrum and nonchalantly purchasing YouTube for $1.65 billion.

Google has also taken direct aim at Microsoft’s core business, offering free e-mail and software from word processing to spreadsheets and calendars, pushing a transformative — and highly disruptive — concept known as “cloud computing.” According to this plan, users will increasingly store all of their data on Google’s massive servers — a network of a million computers that amounts to the world’s largest supercomputer, with unlimited capacity to house all the information Google seeks.

The more offerings Google adds, and the more ubiquitous a presence it becomes, the more dependent its users become on its services and the more information they contribute to its uniquely comprehensive collection of data.

Will Google stay true to its famous “Don’t Be Evil” mantra, using its power in its customers’ best interests?

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Today, Publicis announced the launch of their new digital advertising initiative, VivaKi. And Yahoo wasted no time sending out a press release regarding the new partnership with Publicis, perhaps in an attempt to compete with the news of Google’s Ad Planner. But with Google already having its own agreement with Publicis, Yahoo is really just playing catch-up.

Yahoo’s partnership is a dizzying array of product integrations between the two. Let’s dive in:

First up, mobile marketing. Publicis’ mobile marketing agency, PhoneValley, will be the first global agency to integrate Yahoo’s Blueprint, a mobile developer platform language. The integration aism to aid brands in scaling their messages to a global level. Publicis will also be creating “microsites” to leverage Yahoo’s Smart Ads, a mobile advertising tech solution.

Another part of the agreement is Publicis’ integration of Yahoo’s Right Media Exchange with their current media buying systems. Yahoo touts Right Media Exchange as “the largest open community of buyers and sellers including advertisers, agencies, publishers and networks.” Yahoo hopes the integration will help clients of Publicis be able to target demographics with a single campaign buy.

“Our goal in working together with advertisers and agencies is to help them build brands, reach consumers and increase sales in new ways,” said Yahoo President Sue Decker, who recently spoke about the online advertising transformation and is believed to be behind Yahoo’s latest reorganization. “Through this relationship, Yahoo! and Publicis will empower the next generation of innovative advertising solutions.”

“This partnership with Yahoo! takes the biggest challenge facing marketers today-the need for hyper-personalization on a massive scale-and turns it into a scalable, direct opportunity for Publicis Groupe clients,” said David Kenny, Managing Partner of Publicis Groupe VivaKi. “By creating an evolved business structure built specifically to capitalize on this medium, we’ll advance the larger industry and in the process set new standards for online advertising innovation.”

What is Cinco de Mayo? It’s the best reason to party (May 5th) at the Cinco de Mayo bash hosted by 212, NYC’s interactive advertising club. Sure there will be lots of Cinco de Mayo activities in New York and Cinco de Mayo food (margaritas!)

What’s the origin of Cinco de Mayo? Whether you spell it Cinco de Mayo, Sinco Demio, Cinco de Mio, or Sinco de Mayo, it’s a great Mexican holiday. Here’s a very brief Cinco de Mayo history:

In the Battle of Puebla, on May 5, 1862, an underdog Mexican army defeated the massive, well-trained French army, arguably the most powerful in the world (that year). The French lost the battle but won the war. That can’t stop us from celebrating Cinco de Mayo traditions, though:

If you’re not 21 years old, please click thru to the next post.

Cinco de Mayo Bash
Dates: May 05, 2008
Times: 6:30 PM - 9:30 PM
Where: Touch Night Club, 240 W. 52nd St. (b/w Broadway and 8th Avenue)
Event Type: 212 Event

Description: Complete madness and good times. Kevin M Ryan will be there with Matt McGowan. Open bar.

A few reasons why you should scrap whatever plans you have on May 5th to party with 212:

1) Touch Night Club (Midtown Manhattan)
2) Hot 97’s DJ Camilo on the ones & twos
3) Open Bar
4) VIP floor (more on that later)
5) Dance performance by Tre Armstrong (from “How She Move”)
6) Open Bar (one more time for emphasis)

And there will be more surprises the night of that 212 can’t share now but would be a shame to miss.

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