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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.

A month ago, LinkedIn unveiled its new search platform. Now they’re rolling it out to their 31 million users.

Here’s what you can look forward to in the new search platform:

Suggestive Search - When you type into the search box, a list of suggested names from your contacts pops up. You can select one of the names without having to type in the whole thing. I think this might come in handy when you’re having a hard time remembering a name. Maybe you remember the first letter or the first name, but the rest of it just isn’t coming to you - this can help.

Streamlined Search Results - LinkedIn changed the design to make it easier to scan the results. They also added photos. Results can be sorted by relevance, which includes the social graph, or by relationship, relationship + recommendations, and keyword.

Customizable Views Users can determine what info they want returned in their search results. Just click the “Views” drop down menu (next to the “Sort” drop down menu at the top of the results). You can decide whether you want to view headlines, photos, locations and more of the people returned in a search.

Take Action Straight from the Search Results When you mouse over a result, you’ll notice links that let you take action. You can send InMail, get introduced (through a common contact), or add that person to your network.

Modify Your Search On the right hand side of the results, you’ll notice a form where you can type in additional information to narrow your search down and pinpoint it to more exact specifications. You can search by name, job title, company location, and school.

Save Your Search If you want to return to the results, you can save your search. This is a good idea if you’ve modified your search or customized your view.

Check out this video to get a good visual for all of the above:

Of course, you’ll need to be signed in to LinkedIn to take advantage of all the features in the new platform. Not LinkedIn yet? Our own Carrie Hill explained why you need to be in her article, Small Business Owners Need Twitter and LinkedIn.

Head over to LinkedIn and give the new search a test drive. Then come back and let us know what you think in the comments.

Google AdWords has released a new keyword tool. This one lets users plug in their website and a few keywords. The tool, dubbed Search-based keyword tool, takes a look at the site and makes suggestions for keywords that may be relevant to your paid search campaign.

The idea is that you might be missing out on terms that are being searched for. I have to admit, when I’ve used keyword tools, I’ve often been wishing I knew what people were searching for instead of guessing.

But the SEO copywriter in me also knows that so many sites are already optimized for keyword terms based on traditional keyword research, which often starts with a guess.

Plus, the existing keyword tool takes keywords and phrases plugged in by the user already returns a bunch of suggestions.

The tool’s strength lies in avoiding human error. In other words, the existing AdWords keyword tool relies on human entry. This tool looks at the site and can help marketers avoid overlooking terms they may have missed.

Still, remember the tool is in beta. And Google makes it clear that it’s not responsible if you use their suggested keywords in a way that violates the law. Say, by creating an ad that includes a trademarked term.

Related Reading:
AdWords Keyword Tool Now Shows Numerical Data

New market research has found that blog readers are strongly influenced by blog content when it comes to purchase decisions across a number of categories, and that blogs play a key role in ushering readers to the point of an actual purchase. BuzzLogic, a social media analysis company and ad network, sponsored the market research and JupiterResearch, a Forrester research company, conducted the survey of more than 2,000 online consumers in the US.

Their Harnessing the Power of Blogs survey also found that blog readership has grown 300% over the past four years. The results also suggest that consumers who read blogs more than once per month — or frequent blog readers — use blogs as the top online navigation tool to discover other blog content, ranking higher than general Web search or blog search.

The new market research will be the focus of a free webinar, “Consumers and the Influence of Blogs: What it Means for Your Marketing Mix,” which will be held on Thursday, November 20, 2008, at 2:00 p.m. EDT / 11:00 a.m. PDT. The free webinar will be moderated by Matt McGowan, vice president and publisher for Incisive Media’s digital marketing businesses, and will feature Barry Parr, Analyst at JupiterResearch, and Rob Crumpler, President and CEO of BuzzLogic.

Looking more closely at how blogs factor into consumer purchase decisions and the nature of blog influence on buying behavior, the survey found:
• Blogs influence purchases: 50% of blog readers say they find blogs useful for purchase information.
• Blogs sway more purchases among readers than social networks: More frequent blog readers say they trust relevant blog content for purchase decisions than content from social networking sites. Enid Burns of The ClickZ Network focused on this finding in her recent story about the survey, “Study: Blogs Influence Purchases More Than Social Sites.”
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3631303
• Niche focus ups influence factor: For those who have found blog content useful for product decisions, 56% said blogs with a niche focus and topical expertise were key sources.
• Blogs go beyond tech: Outside of technology-related purchases, for which 31% of readers say blogs are useful, other key categories include: media and entertainment (15%); games/toys and/or sporting goods (14%); travel (12%); automotive (11%); and health (10%).

According to the study, blogs factor in to critical stages of the purchase process, weighing most heavily at the actual moment of a purchase decision. When it comes to respondents who said they have trusted blog content for purchase decisions in the past, over half (52 percent) say blogs played a role in the critical moment they decided to move forward with a purchase.

Blog readers were also surveyed about the influence of blogs as it relates to the following steps of the purchase process:
• 21% decide on a product or service,
• 19% refine choices,
• 19% get support and answers,
• 17% discover products and services,
• 14% assure,
• 13% inspire a purchase
• 7% execute a purchase.

For frequent blog readers, ads on blogs are on par with sponsored search results. However, trust of blog advertising exceeds that of social networking site advertising. A quarter of these readers say they trust ads on a blog they read; paid search links also accounted for 25% of the responses, while 19% say they trust ads on social networking sites.

The study also suggests that ads on blogs spur a number of activities: 40% of blog readers have taken action as a result of viewing an ad on a blog; 50% of frequent blog readers say this is the case. The top activities include:
• 17% read product reviews online,
• 16% sought out more info on a product or service,
• 16% visited a manufacturer or retailer website.

JupiterResearch designed and fielded the survey in August 2008 to online consumers selected randomly from the NPD Group US online consumer panel. A total of 2,210 individuals responded. For more information on the survey’s methodology, go to JupiterResearch.

Now, blogs certainly aren’t considered the “newbies” of the social media scene – “granddaddies” is probably a more appropriate term. But that gives them an advantage from a marketing perspective – the medium has matured and moved from early adopter phase to the mainstream.

This may come as a surprise to some search engine marketers, but blog readers do not appear to rely as heavily on search as a means to find new blogs as consumers of traditional online media do. According to the new survey, one in five consumers who have read a blog in the past 12 months — or general blog readers — use blog links to discover new blogs. Further, the study suggests blogs are not consumed in isolation — 49% of blog readers and 71% of frequent readers read more than one blog per session. Other key findings include:
• Links more powerful than search: For frequent readers, links beat search as a navigation tool: 38 percent said blog links were the top tool for discovering new blog content as compared to 34 percent who voted for Web search.
• Links signal trust: For frequent readers, blog links appear to have similar impact as a trusted recommendation from a person (a response from 39 percent of survey participants).
• Blog search not yet mainstream: Blog search engines received the lowest ranking from respondents: 6 percent of general readers and 11 percent of frequent readers say they use these tools to discover new blogs.

If you are interested in getting more details about Harnessing the Power of Blogs, register for the free Webinar. Again, it will be held on Thursday, November 20, 2008, at 2:00 p.m. EDT / 11:00 a.m. PDT.

It’s easy to pick on Microsoft. It’s practically a national pastime at this point. So when they announced their Cashback program to help grow Live Search, the snears came fast and furious.

“You have to pay people to search?” they said.

Turn your laughter into claps, people. It turns out that Cashback is working. Microsoft is seeing positive results on three goals it said it would report. They are:

• Number of offers in the system
• Advertiser return on investment (ROI)
• Percentage of commercial search queries as measured by comScore

There’s been a 30% increase in the number of products offered via Cashback. 4.5 million unique users per month are generating 68 million commercial queries. eBay has seen an increase of 50% on their ROI.

“We believe this early traction speaks to the differentiated and unique value proposition of Microsoft Live Search cashback for both consumers and advertisers, especially in these tough economic times,” said Brad Goldberg, general manager of Microsoft Live Search.

Is it really any surprise that incentives work? No. Have you ever been listening to the radio and they’re having a $1,000 giveaway? You have to be listening at the right times to call in.

Incentives are nothing new. Microsoft was smart to implement them into Live Search. People don’t necessarily use Google because it’s any better but because it’s familiar. Live Search needs a way to get people searching, and Cashback is working to help accomplish those goals.

That may be why Microsoft is expanding Cashback by partnering with shopping cart providers Miva Merchant, Early Impact Inc. (ProductCart) and 3DCart. Through the agreement, merchants who use the shopping carts are eligible for Cashback.

Eric Schmidt may have turned down the job of Obama’s CTO, but he’s still part of the President-elect’s transition team. And during this transition time, the Google CEO will give a speech about the future of technology and economic growth.

The speech will take place in DC, next Tuesday, November 18, 2008 from 1:00 - 2:30pm EST. The event is hosted by the New America Foundation and will occur at the Ronald Reagan Building Ampitheater at 1300 Pennsylvania Ave NW. Be sure to RSVP if you wish to attend.

Can’t attend? There will be a live webcast. Click on the RSVP link above to watch. You’ll need Flash 9.

Every year the flu hits and while it may just seem like a miserable couple of weeks for those who get it, it actually kills 500,000 people worldwide a year.

Google is releasing a new tool called Google Flu Trends which tracks search queries to show where the flu is flaring up.

Of course, the best way to avoid the flu is to get a flu shot. Google provides a Flu Shot locator on the right hand sidebar of Flu Trends. (Of course, you can call your doctor or check with your local pharmacy, too.)

Related Reading:
WebMD CEO Fights Off Google Health Virus with SEO
Two Health Sites Merge to Challenge WebMD

Incisive Media announced today that Matt McGowan is being promoted to vice president and publisher for its digital marketing businesses, including the ClickZ network, Search Engine Watch and the Search Engine Strategies conference series. Matt, who was formerly the global VP of marketing for the group, will oversee all non-editorial functions including sales, marketing and operations. He will report to Kevin Vermeulen, senior vice president.

Matt joined Incisive Media in 2006. Before that, he had served as vice president – sales, marketing and operations for PropertyRoom.com. He began his media career as a marketing manager for Pearson PLC.

McGowan holds a bachelor’s degree from Lafayette College and received his MBA from the University of Oxford. He will continue to be based in New York City.

In a press release, Vermeulen said, “We’re pleased that Matt will be leading the expansion of these fast-growing brands that are widely recognized as key resources for interactive marketers.”

Matt is well-known in the search industry. In addition to seeing him at Search Engine Strategies conferences and expos on several continents, he has also started moderating SES Webcasts, including the one last Friday with Bill Tancer of Hitwise.

John Connor Mulligan of SEO-PR interviewed Matt during SES New York 2008 — in Times Square. If you look closely, you’ll see a big shamrock in Matt’s lapel. Hmmmmm. Do you think, maybe, McGowan is a wee bit Irish?

Matt McGowan in Times Square, Day 1 SES NY 2008

Auto search engine Cars.com is offering a free webinar intended to help dealerships learn how online advertising can drive offline traffic.

The webinar will be held this Friday, November 14 at noon EST. Click here for more details and to register for the event.

Here are the specifics of what will be presented:

• Traffic-now vs. branding as the key advertising objective.
• Websites and online features that car buyers use before visiting a store.
• Ingredients of internet ads that drive store traffic.
• A full accounting of internet-generated store traffic.

“A significant percentage of in-market car buyers prefer to take the next step toward a purchase on the most direct path, an in-store visit,” said Dennis Galbraith, Cars.com vice president of advertising products. “These shoppers may not call or email first, so the information they find online determines the dealers they select. Dealers who fully merchandise their complete inventory with multiple pictures, descriptive sell copy and competitive pricing position themselves to win more than their fair share of the business.”

Related Reading:
Yahoo Adds Cars.com, Forbes.com and Ziff-Davis to Publishers’ Network
Cars.com Listings Hit Mobile Devices
Cars.com Drives Ad Campaign to Web

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has responded to Jerry Yang’s comments about being open to a Microsoft acquisition. Speaking to a group of developers in Sydney, he dismissed the option of an outright acquisition, but remained open to a search deal. Though, even that didn’t sound particularly promising:

We made an offer… We made another offer. It was clear that [Yahoo] doesn’t want to sell the business to us and we moved on. We tried at one point to do a partnership around search, not an acquisition. And that didn’t work either, and we moved on… and they moved on… We are not interested in going back and relooking at an acquisition. I don’t know why they would be either, frankly. They turned us down at $33 a share … I’m sure there are still opportunities for some kind of partnership around search.

Of course, all of this has been a game of poker from the start. So, whether Ballmer is truly saying no or simply just waiting to see if Yahoo’s stock drops so low that Microsoft becomes the JP Morgan (Yahoo being the Bear Stearns, of course) remains to be seen.

And why not wait for a merger of Yahoo and AOL and then scoop up 2 competitors for the price of 1 (and a reduced price at that!)?

Microsoft is smart to hold on to its stash of cash while the economy hangs out in the pooper. Sorry, Jerry, but you had your chance.