Marketers Studio - David Berkowitz's Marketing Blog

Google Trends China: Ethan Hawke Goes Uncensored

Courtesy of Google Blogoscoped, Google Trends is now available in Chinese. I can't read Chinese, nor can I write it with my US keyboard, but it's still possible to have fun with it. For instance, take one of the trends of the Chinese Google Trends homepage and then add your own. Apparently, Mao is far more popular than Ethan Hawke, and whatever the other two trends are. Click the image at right to see it.

Update: According to Google Translate, 机票 is "ticket" and 火车票 is "train tickets." It was more interesting when I didn't know what all this meant.

Mel Gibson is the new Tom Cruise

It was hard to watch Tom Cruise in Mission:Impossible III after he went on his lunatic rants that somehow involved Scientology, Katie Holmes, Brooke Sheilds, and Oprah. I think he also married one of the four.

Mel Gibson is now an  entrant into the club of actors whose movies should go right to Netflix, since they don't deserve the big screen ticket price.

My biggest beef with Mel isn't so much the anti-Semitism. Let's put aside what he allegedly said (which, if the reports on TMZ.com are true, would offend to women, Jews, and, oh, just about anyone with a pulse). Even more troubling is how he apologized. He released an apology through his publicist. This is a grown man and a supposed role model (growing up, Mel in Lethal Weapon was a runner up only to Harrison in Indiana Jones and Star Wars), and he can't even apologize himself.

William Wallace would not be impressed.

Hezbollah vs Kate Hudson

Some of the most fun I have writing columns is from the distractions. On today's radar: who's more popular in terms of search volume, Hezbollah or Kate Hudson? Click the chart to see.

What surprised me here is that there hasn't been a massive spike in Hezbollah searches. Okay, maybe I shouldn't be. But when CNN and Fox News are running round-the-clock coverage with features such as "Anderson Cooper Refs a Hezbollah vs Haifa kickball match" and "Fox News Live for World War Five," you'd think there'd be something visible in search trends.

Nope. Even a has-been daughter of a has-been actress who has been in a total of one watchable movie trounces the terrorist group in search volume. I love America.

Hiring

Gotta love this industry. Lots of folks are hiring. A few of these may have been filled (don't blame the messenger), but send a line and I'll get you a direct contact (my info's at right).
* 360i: account execs/directors, engineers, analysts (see the link for more). NYC, Atlanta, San Francisco.
* Email Data Source: Sales Director.
* Search Media Supervisor in Kansas City, MO
* Grey Interactive seeks account person with 4+ years experience for leading beauty account - NY
* Ingenio - account manager - NY
* Philly - UnREAL Marketing - senior search strategist, media planner/buyer, media director

Myspace vs YouTube

The latest buzz is YouTube now has greater reach than MySpace. Is this true?

Let's take a look at the numbers. Click images for a larger view.

First, here's Alexa:

It's clearly the outlier. Check out searches from Google Trends and blog posts in Blogpulse. No comparison - MySpace owns it.

Meanwhile, Hitwise says MySpace is bigger than Jesus - err, I mean Google.

Lastly, SiliconBeat provides comScore numbers that show no comparison.

I wouldn't obsess over Alexa numbers. Does any of this really matter though? You can sleep just fine at night merely accepting that both MySpace and YouTube are really, really big.

Oh, what am I saying... it's always about the numbers.

Search Insider: Keystone Gospel

"If you’re looking for the one key takeaway from MediaPost’s Search Insider Summit in Keystone, Colo. last week, you’re out of luck; you’re getting 20."

View the top 20 here.

Sleepless in Chicago

At Ad:Tech Chicago. Took some photos last night of the calm before the show storm. View them on Picasa Web here.

Vance

For US Office fans... a website fitting for Bob Vance: vancerefrigeration.com.

Search Insider Summit - First Thoughts

I'm blogging live from the Search Insider Summit in Keystone, CO (don't tell the panelists). It's only the second session, but here are a few top-level points that have come up (and will likely be fleshed out in a column):

• Any search marketing agency not proactively educating its clients shouldn't be working with clients at all (said in not so many words by a marketer).
• Natural/organic search is still woefully overlooked compared to paid, especially considering consumer preferences (noted by Chris Sherman).
• Ask.com is working on ad sales integration with Citysearch. When IAC acquired Ask, I wrote that IAC's opportunity was to make Ask the predominant local search engine. It still could happen.
• Chris Sherman says a mega search trend now is "injecting people into the process." Rohit Bhargava will have more to say in his "Human Side of Search" panel.
• Best Schwag: HitTail, from Connors. Inside the well-branded fanny pack are hiking snacks and a game piece for a raffle for a camera. All the more impressive considering HitTail's still in beta. Runner up: Revenue Science poker chip/card sets left in hotel rooms. Heavy duty - not typical cheapo conference stuff.

More later...

Pop-Up Papi

Doodling is so 1990s. Here's a new way to pass the time at conferences. The photos are a pop-up edition of David Ortiz, which a certain blogger created during a certain conference in Boston last week. Click for a larger view.