the buzz log
Buzz Week in Review
Not all was about financial lows and jittery panic this week. Good news slipped in among the black yawning chasm of bad news, as celebrities made pitches for motherhood, college football fans exulted in pigskin hotspots, and lawmakers got to yell at Wall Street executives. Here now is the week in Buzz.
The Economy Just Needs a Mud Bath
Timing is everything. The Buzz Log reported an incensed surge for "aig spa" searches, but no, not for recommendations. AIG, which may have to dip back in taxpayer pockets after last month's $85 billion bailout, was handed a clue during this week's Senate hearing, when lawmakers chewed out execs for a $440,000 spa trip to reward "top-performing" life insurance agents. The Wall Street firm cancelled another junket and the plan to pay for pricy ads to apologize. Now free: $400/night rooms available at the Ritz Carleton in California's Half Moon Bay. Still wanted: Apology.
Hot Magazine Mamas
Motherhood isn't just sexy, it's high fashion. Halle Berry, the Oscar winner who also tortured audiences as Catwoman, now wears the Esquire crown of Sexiest Woman Alive. Berry's acceptance essay pondered hip dysplasia, the ripe smell of her man's (Gabriel Aubry) car, and how she feels sexier after motherhood. Meanwhile, 2004 honoree Angelina Jolie has received props from advocates like La Leche League International for being W magazine's breastfeeding cover woman for November. No essay, but she talks up pregnancy and her beau Brad Pitt.
Something to Cheer About
At least there's always college football. USA Today lowered its head and ran with its list of "10 great places to stand and cheer college football." Among the stadiums, Neyland got kudos for passion, Husky for its views, and Camp Randall for its deep-fried cheddar balls.
Also buzzing this week ...
• A 92-year-old tradition ended in a sad pun when Mother's Cookies baked its last Circus Animal cookies. Even NPR couldn't resist the crumbling metaphor, when the private equity firms that bought the company three years ago now declared it bankrupt.
• Markets may fall, but the two wheels keep turning: The Economist reports pumped-up bike sales worldwide, thanks to gas prices and the battle of the bulge.
• Forget staycation. People hankering to get away from the madding crowd found budget travel sites devoted to the cause of relaxation.
Filed under: Football, Finance, Business, Celebrities, Transportation, Pregnancy, Breastfeeding, Week in Review, Cookies, Wrap Up
Buzz Multiplex: Beefcakes on the Menu
Beefcake's the main entree served up at the Buzz Multiplex this weekend, with A-list actors and historical sports figure. Of course, movie offerings also include the tasty family-film appetizer amd the guilty pleasures of junk-food horror. Feast your eyes upon the top four menu options based on Searches in the past seven days.
1. "Quarantine" (R). Horror movies usually draw lots of online interest, especially from the kiddies too young to catch an R-rated flick about reality TV show hosts caught in a quarantined building. Likely destined for the DVD bargain bin, the movie's also getting some traffic for its site, Contain the Truth, as well as stars Jennifer Carpenter, Jay Hernandez, and Columbus Short.
2. "Body of Lies" (R). So what stirs people's curiosities when Leonardo DiCaprio pairs with Russell Crowe in a spy film? DiCaprio's offscreen and onscreen lady loves, including Bar Rafaeli, Kate Winslet (in "Titanic") and his current romantic lead, Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani (+96%). War on terror films have garnered mix reception, and this one gets mixed critical feedback like "excessively intricate and extremely dull" to "throat-gripping urgency and some serious insights." The title does intrigue males and females 13-54, enough to reach the top 5,000 searches and claim the honor of political family movie of the week.
3. "City of Ember" (PG-13). Inspired by the novel of nearly the same name, the fantasy delves into the lives of two teens who try to figure out how to save their dying underground city. A 38% chunk of online lookups hails from the under-18 set. Teen stars Saoirse Ronan and Harry Treadaway may save the day, but only Ronan's getting the time of day among searchers. Among the old-timers, Bill Murray and Tim Robbins have been getting a gratifying bump in their online profiles.
4. "The Express" (PG). Don't be deceived by the fourth-place ranking in Search: Lookups for "ernie davis" (+131%), the first black man to win the Heisman Trophy, are five times as popular as the movie and higher than "Quarantine." Davis is also more popular than DiCaprio, the top searched actor of the week. As for star Rob Brown, the relative newcomer is making only a tiny Search ripple, while Dennis Quaid as the coach gets more love. Guys (especially those from the Eastern shores of the U.S., Texas, and California) make up two-thirds of the interest for the we-shall-overcome-feel-good-historical-sports movie of the week.
Filed under: Movies, Football, Literature, Horror
A Very Buzzy Schedule: Planning Out the Rest of 2008
Amateur athletes and professional politicians have taken up a chunk of summer, but as fall draws nigh, people are figuring out how to maximize leisure, work, and holiday time for the rest of 2008. Many have been consulting different "schedules" on the Web. Not surprisingly, college and professional sports dominated searches in the past 7 days, as the following top 20 (non-convention-related) list reveals:
Fall TV and transportation timetables also cracked the national priority list. The Great Writer's Strike of 2008 has made for some mighty skimpy programming, and viewers have also been seeking out cable fare on HBO (+43%), while the CW and CBS make up the most freebie broadcast queries. As for transportation, the new school year may likely be driving these lookups, as students return to college and parents reschedule their day around their children's activities.
The holiday time crunch doesn't loom that far off, and indeed an obsessed many began gathering ideas for halloween costumes since early August. True advance planners scheme even now for Yuletide joys, such as "christmas ornament crafts" (+209%), "christmas songs" (+89%), and "christmas trees" (+21%).
More current, of course, are the holiday queries for Ramadan, including the "ramadan fasting schedule 2008." The Islamic holy month started Aug. 30 through Sept. 2, depending on how celebrants calculate the beginning of the lunar month.Expect a busy fall: The professional politicans aren't going away anytime soon (at least, not until November 5), and another round of amateur competition comes after the Beijing Paralympics holds its opening ceremony on Sept. 6. This may be no time to miss out on historical moments, but history definitely has a way of pre-empting regularly scheduled lives.
Wide Receivers Reborn
We present the case of NFL wide receivers Terrell Owens and Randy Moss. Two fantastic football players with horrible reputations as me-first whiners who have divided locker rooms coast to coast. But as they say with the stock market, past performance may not be indicative of future results.
Both previously petulant players have scored big in the buzz thanks to inspired on-field efforts. Searches on newly humble Owens of the dynamite Dallas Cowboys jumped 171% after his four touchdown catch performance against the Redskins. Queries on reinvigorated Randy of the unbeaten New England Patriots leapt 287% after he caught four touchdowns in a single half against the Bills. But how do the formerly dour duo fare against each other in Buzz? We graphed their searches over the past month...
And... it's a dead heat. The star wideouts are tied! Moss held the lead for most of the past month, but Owens passed him last week (Moss had the week off) and now they're even in the minds of searchers. Who will be on top at the end of the season? Will they meet again in the Super Bowl? Most important, can they avoid distracting meltdowns? Time will tell and buzz will follow...
Crazy For College Football
Due to the unpredictable nature of the college football season, fan discretion is advised. Your favorite squad sits near the top of the rankings, only to get bounced from the BCS after an untimely loss. With shocking upsets becoming commonplace, interest in the Bowl Championship Series and its machinations have sacked the Search box.
This past weekend, it was Ohio State's turn to tumble. The resulting scramble sent searches on "bcs standings" up 85% for the week. Related searches on "bcs bowl games" (+110%), "bcs ranking" (+95%), and "bcs poll" (+84%) are storming the field as fans attempt to make sense of the shifting standings.
Some fans still have questions about the BCS and how it works. Right now the most popular inquiry in Search is "when do the bcs standings come out." Well, it's Sunday afternoon when Fox is good and ready to release the information. But others are quizzical about "what does bcs stand for" and "how does the bcs work." For those folks, we recommend a remedial class with nutty professor Lou Holtz.
Where are the BCS searches coming from? No surprise that Baton Rouge (LSU), Oklahoma City (Univ. of Oklahoma), and Columbus (Ohio State) lead the way. But we see a metro not known for its gridiron prowess creeping up on the rail. Lovely Honolulu is home to the undefeated Rainbow Warriors of Hawaii and places fourth in BCS interest. Can the underdog team from the islands crack a big bowl? In this crazy college season, anything is possible...
Filed under: Sports, Football, College Football
top movers
| Rank | Subject | 1-Day Move |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ford 400 | Breakout! |
| 2 | Indonesia Ferry | Breakout! |
| 3 | Jordan Chandler | 3481% |
| 4 | Evan Chandler | 2322% |
| 5 | American Music Awards | 1841% |
| 6 | John F. Kennedy | 1529% |
| 7 | Turkey Stuffing Recipes | 1361% |
| 8 | Liam Hemsworth | 1172% |
| 9 | Lou Dobbs | 1142% |
| 10 | Hendrick Motorsports | 888% |
top leaders
| Rank | Subject | Move | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Black Friday | +340 | 1290 |
| 2 | NFL | +489 | 670 |
| 3 | Jennifer Lopez | +451 | 515 |
| 4 | New Moon | -67 | 250 |
| 5 | American Music Awards | +236 | 249 |
| 6 | UFC | -36 | 239 |
| 7 | Miley Cyrus | +66 | 169 |
| 8 | Hulu | -11 | 154 |
what's the buzz?
A subject's buzz score is the percentage of Yahoo! users searching for that subject on a given day, multiplied by a constant to make the number easier to read. Weekly leaders are the subjects with the greatest average buzz score for a given week.
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