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Hitwise Intelligence - Alan Long - Asia Pacific

Analyst Weblog

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Bad Boys, Politics and taking a Dive!

September 01, 2008

As quickly as we cover religion and sex (see last week's fast movers blog), politics raises it's head and demands attention. In this week's fast moving search terms the announcement of Sarah Palin as Republican, John McCain's running mate for November 4 US Presidential elections, has created a jump in searches for the current Governor of Alaska.

Sarah Palin at 44 years old is a strategic move by McCain to combat Barack Obama's perceived age advantage, just as Obama's selection of Sen. Joe Widen brings an older face to his campaign to reassure more traditional voters. The chart below highlights the impact of the Republican announcement locally, especially compared to the selection of Joe Biden's as Barack Obama's running mate.

From a local perspective, the chart below highlights Australia's obsession / interest in US Politics and the presidential race versus our domestic leaders. The interest in Obama is as high as the fervour for Kevin Rudd preceding the Australian elections last November 24, and currently the US political scene is a lot more engaging than local activities, it will be interesting to watch our obsession as the election unfolds.

The fastest moving search terms this week related to the death of All Saints actor Mark Priestley last Wednesday. News and Media sites attracted the most traffic as the community looked for details of the tragedy.

Fastest Moving Search Terms w/e August 30

1. mark priestley
2. all saints
3. mark priestly
4. us open
5. matthew mitcham
6. riverfire
7. us opn tennis
8. barack obama
9. sarah palin
10. greg bird

Two events feature this week with the annual River Festival in Brisbane and the US Open in New York. The River Festival which incorporates the Riverfire fireworks spectacular junped 900 places in the Entertainment category from 1,131 to 231. Traffic to the site is being driven by interest in the fireworks presentation, in reviewing our Search Intelligence to searches for Riverfire reveal specific information being sought are road closures, cruises, events, accommodation and vantage points.

The fifth fastest mover, Matthew Mitcham, Australia's Gold Medal diver captured the countries attention with an audacious last dive to overtake his Chinese competitors, scoring the highest scoring dive in the history of Olympic competition in the 10m platform. The heightened interest has moved him to the 6th most searched for Olympic Athlete by Australian users last week and 4th most searched for Australian Olympian.

To end the week on a low point, more sportsmen behaving badly, Greg Bird the Cronulla Rugby League player made the headlines on the back of a police arrest for the assault of his girlfriend. News and Media sites were the beneficiary of searches on Greg Bird's name. Greg still has a fair way to go to generate the interest in his antics that other 'bad boys' have generated over the past year – apologies to Sonny Bill Williams who probably shouldn't be on this list.