the buzz log
Olympic Training for Couch Potatoes
Can you handle more than 3,600 hours of Games of the XXIX Olympiad? You don't even have to cut caffeine and get pedicures, as some Olympiad hopefuls have done. Instead, oil up the remote control and the mouse, and try these sit-down techniques instead.
Learn your numbers. Not just the stats: XXIX means 29, but 8/8/8 means luck tripled in Chinese (the number 8 is a homonyn for the word "prosperity").Practice staring. Don't miss the action. The difference between gold and silver can be measured by a 1,000th of a second, which How Stuff Works says says is 40 times faster than an eye blink.
Visualize the surroundings. Understanding an event's setting may give you an advantage. Try scanning the BBC Sport map.
Tune in. Pump yourself up by listening to the Olympic songs... all of them.
Memorize all 596 American athletes. From the track-and-field competitors to the team members of soccer, volleyball, and B-ball.
Focus on lesser sports. Everyone else will be watching to see if swimmer Natalie Coughlin gets her fifth gold medal, or if gymnast Morgan Hamm will keep clean. Instead, look for underdogs in events like kayaking, table tennis, or fencing.Learn to talk big. If you can't memorize the athletes, talk about grand visions, like the boxing's great reform, America's immigrant athletes, Olympic artistry, environmental algae monsters, and if a Chinese tactical force can possibly look intimidating riding Segways.
Dress the part. What's the point of being a capitalist if you can't buy Olympic spirit? Pay $2,000 for an official torch, or $38.20 for a Speedo Team USA brief. If you get the swim trunks, don't forget to make that Brazilian wax appointment.
A Thousand Words, A Gazillion Searches
Canadian-born Hong Kong actor-singer Edison Chen just wanted his laptop fixed. Instead, the repair guy liberated some 1,300 compromising photos of high-profile starlets—including those of famed ex-girlfriend Gillian Chung—and released them online in recent weeks.
Voila, instant fame of the worst kind, as his name (+1,612%) crashed into our top 500 searches this week. The usual celeb cycle of photos searches, scandal news (+21,804%), blog pleas and apologies now includes multiple arrests.
Threats to criminalize possession and distribution have unnerved some Web users (especially since thousands have commented on the images), and now activists may protest. Next, expect paraparazzi to sue celebrities for taking away their livelihood.
Filed under: Actors, Celebrities, China, Scandals
Big Buzz on China's Lake Monsters
Swish aside, Nessie. Six frolicking lake monsters have lapped you in Buzz.
Several weeks ago, Chinese Central Television broadcast a local reporter's footage of a group of unidentified (and enormous) swimming creatures in northwestern China. The video is grainy and the animals—if they are animals—are hard to make out. But humdrum details can't keep a good lake monster down. News of the sighting raced around the globe. Now, searches have splashed upwards.
In the past week, buzz on "china lake monster video," "china lake monster animals," and "china lake monster creatures" surged. Interest in "sea monsters" rose 489%. And Lake Tianchi, where the beasts were spotted, drew a sudden influx of attention.
Nessie's not entirely forgotten, though. The six bathing beauties sparked an impressive 4,600% spike in searches for "loch ness monster." Interest in the Scottish legend's pictures, video clips, and sightings also rose. Now, if only the China lake kids could send a little love to their oft-neglected American cousin, the Lake Champlain Monster.
Filed under: Monsters and Creatures, China
Made in China, Recalled in America
China makes things. Indeed, in its 6,000 years, the Middle Country has invented some firsts: kites, rudders, gunpowder, toilet paper, and ice cream. Nowadays, the made-in-China label is under closer scrutiny, and the latest inspection comes after Mattel Inc. recalled more than a million preschool toys because of lead paint.
The costly $30 million move had buzz scrambling in the toy box, tossing cumulative searches for "fisher price recall" and "mattel recall" into the top 25 the day after the news emerged. Consumers, mostly women, also checked to see if specific toys made the "toy recall list," such as Dora the Explorer and Elmo. Others recalled other recalls, including those for Easy Bake oven, Baby Swing Rainforest, and Thomas The Train. Lead paint also prompted the little engine to stop in its distribution tracks.
China, which is doing everything from construction to seeding clouds to prepare for its Beijing Olympics, has moved more speedily in the public relations to defend its rep. The meager spikes for "china toy recall" and "made in china" seem to focus less on overseas manufacturing, even though news reports point out that China makes about 70% of the toys sold in America.
Instead, as in the case of the 'Booty recall, buzz behavior has focused more on American regulatory agencies like the "consumer product safety commission" (1,346%). The U.S. and China have agreed on standards, but searchers are making sure their own government learns how to play it safe.
Casting Couch, Hidden Video
A starlet wants a role in a soap opera or film, but the only route to fame is the old "casting couch." But what happens when you throw in new media technology? Either a sweet case of comeuppance or a prime example of sleazy self-promotion...
The tale of hither-to little-known Zhang Yu—not to be mistaken for Zhang ZiYi of "Crouching Tiger" fame—rocked China after the actress accused big-name film, TV, and casting directors of after-hours auditions. To underscore her point, Yu launched 20 secretly recorded videos into cyberspace. Not surprisingly, combined searches for "zhang yu" and "zhang yu actress" jumped 864% in the past seven days.
But how did this get started? Yu filed a defamation lawsuit earlier this year against three directors. They claimed her rumor-mongering was vengeance for a spat. After Yu lost her appeal last month, she uploaded her video weapons and went on a publicity rampage.
As debate swirls around her role in all this, Yu's next move is, naturally, an autobiography. We'll have to wait and see if that makes her the most famous Zhang on the block.
Dam It All
Only the most ambitious of dams would dare to control China's Yangtze River. The Three Gorges Dam stretches nearly a mile and a half long, stands over 600 feet high, and attempts just that feat. And any dam that big is going to have some pretty big dam buzz, especially when there's an explosion involved.
After engineers blew up the last temporary construction barrier surrounding Three Gorges last week, searches flooded the buzz, and "three gorges dam" hit the high-water mark, up 9,600% to become the top Buzz mover of the week. We suspect many of the searchers were hoping to get a glimpse of the actual explosion when a couple hundred tons of explosives sent 6.7 million cubic feet of concrete into the Yangtze. A blast of this size is so clearly buzzworthy, it was even broadcast on national television in China.
Now that we know how dam-happy searchers are, let's dive into our top 10 dam searches...
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.
For more detailed information, visit our FAQ.