Online media planning: January 2008 Archives

Just as I was starting to despair of how cluttered my Facebook page was getting, I've been invited to unclutter my profile page.    So I've moved 7 applications to my 'extended profile', leaving a mere 14 content boxes to be getting on with.

Will I ever look at my extended profile?  Shouldn't think so.  I wonder how many of the thousands of Facebook apps being coded up right now will end up languising in this digital purgatory?

This is my issue with a lot of this frantically trendy activity around apps and widgets: there is only so much screen estate available.  You'll need to put something really very fab together to get a prominent position on someone's Facebook profile - otherwise you'll be sitting in the 'extended profile' with a bunch of zombies and pirates!

I just noticed that Google Zeitgeist lets you see a list of the 100 most searched for keywords on a particular day – and then to see a breakdown of search volume by hour for each phrase.

So here is the list of the 100 most searched for terms on Christmas Day in the United States (you can only see US date for now unfortunately).

As you can see, America is particularly troubled by thoughts of where it can pop out for a meal. "Restaurants open on Christmas" is the second most popular search, and there are numerous variations on this search query in the top 100.

So when is America at its hungriest? If we drill down on the 'Restaurants open on Christmas' query we find the answer: searches peak at 3pm.

Data would be very different for the UK, partly because nowhere outside of a few hotels would be open and partly because we are all supposed to have finished our Christmas lunch by the dot of 3pm so we can sit down to the Queen's Speech!