the buzz log
Page-Turners for the Financially Perturbed: Economic Crisis Triggers Book Sales
News for the silver-lining crowd: The credit hysteria has triggered an outbreak of widespread reading.
Bookseller behemoths are seeing a run on the finance and personal finance shelves, according to the Wall Street Journal. Window dressers for Barnes & Noble and Borders have been going giddy laying out tomes like "The Trillion Dollar Meltdown" and "The New Paradigm for Financial Markets."
The latter must-read is by liberal billionaire George Soros, one of many sought-after financial names on the Web: His online stock surged 127% over the past 7 days (although the jump might be due to a recent Saturday Night Live skit). He also just crunched out his latest, "The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What It Means." You can probably get the gist of his financial prescription in his Sunday article for the Financial Times. The column advocates a stronger government role in banks, and illuminates how British newspapers spell "recapitalisation" and "programme."
With the shift from summer beach potboilers to autumn waiting-in-the-bank-line reads, book reviews are percolating within the Buzz. The suggestions below might satisfy searchers who've been going online to make "financial sense" out of the "global financial meltdown," seeing what the new "office of financial stability" is going to do about it, and what "personal finance advice" can be had at this late stage.
- The Austin American Statesman finds itself impressed with "The Smart Cookies' Guide to Making More Dough."
- The New York Observer waded through a spanking new examination of Goldman Sachs—the investment banking house that once employed Secretary Treasurer Henry Paulson and which aims to evade collapse by becoming a commercial bank.
- A biography's out on the popular Warren "Buying-Spree" Buffett (+19%), weighing in at 960 pages.
- WSJ thinks some oldies are still goodies, and lists the five best overviews with titles like "Manias, Panics, and Crashes," "Bailout," and "When Genius Failed."
- The New York Times and Slate don't think financial messes necessarily make for scary bedtime stories. NYT culls tips from the Moneyology series on teaching kids a financial education, while Slate presents a fun-filled slideshow of "Great Kids' Books About Financial Ruin." Ah, to be young and informed.
Filed under: Literature, Finance, Books, Money, Reading, Economics
September 2008 Buzz Wrap Up: Landfalls, Financial Falls, Political Pitfalls
From Olympic highs to financial lows, "fall" took on a whole new meaning this harried September. Among the many events that befell Search, hurricanes hit fragile coasts, politics went into overdrive, and bailouts tried to stop a sinking market. Glumly mull over what the world was searching for in September.
Path of Resistance
Like the grotesque nursery rhyme of the old lady who swallowed a fly,
it seemed inconceivable how formerly redoubtable Wall Street firms had
to be swallowed up by fellow firms or the government itself. As names
like Lehman Brothers, AIG, and Goldman Sachs rippled into everyday consciousness, it was Washington Mutual's
teetering collapse that truly captured people's online attention and
brought uncertainty into the pocketbook. People keep close tabs on a
proposed massive bailout and the man behind the plan (+14,762%), and introduced the dread phrase "u.s. financial crisis" into the Search vernacular.
Path of Glory
Mother nature and father finance disrupted the presidential campaigns, so people really had to rely on the Web to keep track on the candidates, the debate, and most importantly whether Republican vice presidential pick Sarah Palin was indeed Tina Fey's alter ego.
The countdown to the Nov. 4 elections dropped into mere double-digit
days, pressuring searches to investigate rumors, media appearances,
family members, religious affiliations, voting records, personal
history, and porcine make-up tips.
Path of Destruction
Hurricane Ike followed closely behind Tropical Storm Hannah, but he gave fair warning of his category 4 visit. People monitored the impending disaster and its "projected path" (top 500 searches), but still its sheer, kinetic intensity resulted in a death toll of 67 and a devastated Texas coastline. A hopeful but critical eye turned to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (+23,989%) and searches popped up for food stamps and other aid. Many organizations, private citizens, former presidents and undocumented laborers came to clean up what was left behind. Small miracles did surface, from a single Gilchrist house withstanding the impact to a mystery ship unearthed, and a lionness seeking sanctuary.
September 2008 Fastest Movers in Search
Search Terms with the Biggest Percentage Changes
- Hurricane Ike (Mega Mover! See above.)
- Hurricane Ike Projected Path (Mega Mover! See above.)
- Sarah Palin Tina Fey (See above)
- Don LaFontaine (+80,143. The deep-throated trailer guy spoke his last.)
- Shackle (+64,991%. The lionness sought refuge from Ike in a church.)
- Jerry Reed (+45,657%. The country singer died Aug. 31)
- Eva Longoria Parker (+36,182%. Pregnancy rumors surround the actress, but it could be just lots of M&Ms)
- FEMA.com (+23,989%. See above)
- New iPod Nano (+21,843%. Its slim figure debuted at Apple's developer conference.)
- Atom Smasher (+20,949%. Flouting doomsday predictions, the world's largest debuted to Search fanfare, then promptly got glitches.
September 2008 Top 10 Personalities
People Commanding the Most Searches Overall
(parenthetical refers to percentage change in searches compared to previous month)
- Sarah Palin (+138%)
- Britney Spears (+24%)
- Obama (+32%)
- Jessica Alba (+38%)
- Lindsay Lohan (-15%)
- Kim Kardashian (+7)
- Miley Cyrus (-36%)
- John McCain (+91%)
- Paris Hilton (-9%)
- Lil Wayne (+7)
Filed under: Politics, Monthly Wrapup, Recaps, Money, Hurricanes, Elections, Wrap Up, Economics
The Penny Gets a Facelift
Well, it's about time. For 50 long years, the humble, hard-working penny has made its way with little fanfare or recognition. Now, the one-cent currency is getting the respect it's due.
For the first time in half a century, the U.S. Mint will redesign the copper-colored coin. The new look will sport four spiffed-up sides, each celebrating a different stage in the life of Abraham Lincoln. Not bad for a legal tender forced to endure questions of whether it should even exist anymore.
So far, the people seem excited about the coin's face lift. Searches on "new penny" have begun to stack up, while articles on the fresh-faced designs are climbing the Buzz charts. Hey penny, here's to another 50 years of making change.
Filed under: Money
July 2008 Buzz Roundup
July is supposed to be about barbecues, vacations, and leisure. Instead, high gas prices meant people were stuck at home (if they weren't foreclosed, that is), focusing on money savings, dark knights, and celebrity babies. Here are a few items that blew through Search this month.
Tossing Oil and Money into the Wind
So for an 80-year-old guy, oilman T. Boone Pickens's windy talk about energy resources moved quickly (+67,360%) up the Search charts. His Pickens Plan aims to wean America off foreign oil, and suckle on domestic crude and wind instead.
Change may or may not be in the air, but energy costs and the overall economy plagued July searches. We logged spikes on everything from "energy savings" and "how high will gas prices climb" to "fdic insurance" and "credit card debt consolidation." Will Pickens be a dark knight or the joker? Stay tuned.
Baby Boom
History will mark these moments: tea-party independence, men on the moon, and the twins of actors Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. The paparazzi-fueled saga dragged out the gestation period to soap opera lengths, but Jolie finally delivered, literally, fraternal twins (as per the latest celebrity trend).
The double coming resulted in a Jolie family reunion and a huge charity benefit, which rumors so far point to People magazine as the main $10-$15 mil contributor. While the Jolie-Pitt offspring overshadowed newborns from Nicole Kidman/Keith Urban and Matthew McConaughey/Camila Alves, searches went on overload for baby photos of Thomas "Pregnant Man" Beatie's little girl. Price to publish photos of a medical miracle? A rumored steal of $300K.
Other searches that buzzed in July...
- Dame Diana Rigg (+17,157%), who immortalized Mrs. Peel in the 1960s British camp spy series, turned 70 this month.
- Space Agency NASA (+25%) marked its mid-century of existence. Just in time, Dr. Edgar Mitchell—man number six on the moon—said aliens indeed existed.
- Cancer claimed two well-known personalities this month: Carnegie-Mellon professor Randy Pausch's passing once again fueled searches for his lecture (see chart). Former journalist and White House press secretary Tony Snow lost to a second bout of colon cancer.
- As expected, "dark knight" cast its bat shadow, with Heath Ledger getting the last laugh as the Joker... and as "keith ledger," perhaps the most popular misspelling of the month.
Fastest Movers in July Searches
1. Thomas Beatie Baby Photos (+infinity). See above. 2. T. Boone Pickens (+67,360%). See above.
3. Daisy Lowe (35,881%). Supermodel dating producer Mark Ronson, brother to DJ Samantha Ronson who's linked to Lindsay Lohan. Get all that?
4. Abigail Adams. Wife of 2nd U.S. president John Adams, mom to number 6 John Quincy Adams, and subject of an HBO miniseries.
5. Riyo Mori (+22,139%). The outgoing Miss Universe gave up her crown to Miss Venezuela.
6. American Teen (+21,799%). The Sundance Festival documentary favorite keeps it real, and opens in some theaters this Friday.
7. William Sisters (+21,552%). Venus finally beat younger Serena in a Wimbledon match-up, and they teamed up to win doubles.
8. James Haven (+19,986%). See above.
9. Dara Torres Maxim. (19,923%). Aiming for Olympics number five, the gold medalist's element is water, but for fans it's glossy paper.
10. Randy Pausch, the Last Lecture Video (+19,748%). See above.
Filed under: NASA, Celebrities, Monthly Wrapup, Recaps, Gas Prices, Space, Money, Babies, Wimbledon, Pageants, Wrap Up
Wasted
How would you waste a million dollars?
Spending money on rude vices and cheap thrills, any civilian can do that. But to blow through millions on foreign prisons without walls or computers covered with bat dung requires a lack of planning on a magnificent scale.
Pasadena-based Parsons Constructions shows how it's not done, with the help of U.S. officials: A Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction report singled out the global conglomerate for projects that went nowhere, among them a prison, courthouse, and border control stations.
Parsons blamed unsafe conditions in wasting 42 cents out of every dollar it received (in this case, 333 million of those dollars). It shouldn't be so modest: Inspector General Bowen has given them due credit for what Bloomberg News called "sloppy construction and poor management."
Then again, money's easy to waste during a war. It takes imagination to misplace Caterpillar tractors and Jaws of Life rescue equipment. The Indian Health Service is missing equipment worth $16 million—and that was just a random check of 7 out of 163 field locations.
Not everything went missing, as the government report notes: One office dumped $700k worth of IT stuff when bats used the area for a pit stop. Maybe the IHS should consider turning that guano into gold and following one energy plant's model, and really turn millions into waste. And really, that ain't easy.
Filed under: Iraq, Money, Government, Iraq War
top movers
| Rank | Subject | 1-Day Move |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lin Chi Ling | Breakout! |
| 2 | Gloria Diaz | Breakout! |
| 3 | Freida Pinto | 27459% |
| 4 | Gloria Estefan | 9975% |
| 5 | Gloria Velez | 6463% |
| 6 | Gloria Trevi | 3878% |
| 7 | Faith Hill | 2081% |
| 8 | 60 Minutes | 1114% |
| 9 | Alexis Denisof | 994% |
| 10 | Lee Ann Womack | 987% |
top leaders
| Rank | Subject | Move | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | NFL | +464 | 575 |
| 2 | Britney Spears | +194 | 316 |
| 3 | Hi-5 | -11 | 244 |
| 4 | Black Friday | +23 | 212 |
| 5 | Freida Pinto | +198 | 199 |
| 6 | UFC | -24 | 194 |
| 7 | Club Penguin | -30 | 161 |
| 8 | Gloria Estefan | +149 | 150 |
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.