Monthly Archive for March, 2010

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NCAA Basketball vs. the Rest of the Internet

By: Sam, March 18, 2010 in Internet and Sports. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .
Screengrab of Google Trends from this afternoon, showing 17 of 20 of the top search spots occupied by basketball-related searches.

The rest of the Internet didn't stand a chance today. Will it do better tomorrow? (Click to zoom)

If there’s one reliable window into what the Internet is thinking, it’s probably called Google Trends. It should also come as no surprise that around this time of year (a Thursday in the middle of March), a certain NCAA basketball tournament and its related searches (teams, players, online viewing, etc.) have come to dominate the hot searches. That said, the extent to which the Internet is obsessed with March Madness is staggering. At one point this afternoon, 17 of the 20 top searches were NCAA tournament-related. The day’s other big stories (the death of TV’s Davy Crockett, Sandra Bullock‘s husband’s infidelity, and Tiger Woods‘ raunchy text messages) were blips in a sea of searches for Robert Morris and Sam Houston State universities, NCAA results and how to watch the NCAA Tournament online.

While we’ve checked fairly diligently, we’ve yet to see NCAA basketball crack more than 17 of the top 20 (as we write this basketball is down to 11 out of 20). Is 17 the peak, or will the numbers go even higher tonight and tomorrow when big names like Duke, Kansas, Kentucky and those lovable Maryland Terrapins take the court? We’ll keep you updated.

37 singals Goes on the Attack vs. Karl Rove

By: Sam, March 17, 2010 in Internet. 0 Comments Tags: , .

The awesome team of Jason Fried and David Hansson (aka 37 signals) have an equally awesome new book out, called Rework. What’s not so awesome for them is that they’re trapped behind none other than political mastermind Karl Rove on the Amazon bestseller list. Naturally, they asked themselves a simple question, “What would Karl do?”

Their answer? Make an awesome attack ad. Enjoy.

Get Your Government Fix with C-SPAN and Juggle

By: Sam, March 16, 2010 in Government, Internet and Juggle.com. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .
A fresh-faced Bill Clinton addresses a joint session of Congress to sell his health care reform plan.

So young! Surely such a president would have had no trouble passing a massive health care reform bill...

With the ongoing health care hullabaloo, C-SPAN couldn’t have picked a better time to launch its video archive. That’s right, everything that’s ever been on C-SPAN is now at your fingertips via the C-SPAN Video Library (though it’s technically in “beta“). There’s no time like the present to check out your favorite moments from the presidencies of Bill Clinton, both George Bushes or even Ronald Reagan. In the context of health care reform, it’s never been easier to take a look at what the last major health care overhaul looked like (also, look how young Clinton looks). It goes without saying that perusing these videos might make you curious as to who exactly everyone is. Don’t worry, that’s what Juggle’s Government section is for! We’ve made it easy to find out more about the boldface names in politics, yesterday and today, from Newt Gingrich to Nancy Pelosi.

A Look Into Where You Went on the Internet in January

By: Sam, March 15, 2010 in Internet. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .
A beautiful graphic representing Internet traffic for the month of January, 2010

If only the rest of the Internet were this pretty and easy to use...

The BBC is running a fantastic graphical look at January’s web traffic as reported by Nielsen. It’s fascinating to have a visual reference point for just how much traffic is directed at search sites, as well has the fairly even traffic numbers for shopping sites (generally profitable) and news sites (not at all profitable). You can also breakdown the search, social networking, shopping and news blocks further, which reveals all sorts of interesting data like CBS‘s huge traffic numbers relative to its news rival NBC and even the New York Times (Broadcast news stalwart ABC doesn’t appear). Aside from being interesting, all of these graphics make a great companion to the data from Juggle’s website section.

The Guide to iPad Buyer’s Guides

By: Sam, March 12, 2010 in Internet and Technology. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .
Steve Jobs holding Apple's new iPad. Pre-orders started today.

Steve Jobs knows which iPad is right for you, but he's not telling, so you'll have to consult our guide to the guides.

In case you haven’t heard, Apple‘s iPad is now available for pre-order. Since there six possible configurations with prices ranging from $499 to $829, quite a few guides have sprung up to help you decide which iPad is right for you. We won’t join the chorus of iPad guides (though we do offer quite a few buying guides ourselves). Instead, here’s our guide to the iPad guides:

Continue reading ‘The Guide to iPad Buyer’s Guides’

Farewell, Merlin Olsen

By: Sam, March 11, 2010 in Sports and Television. 1 Comment Tags: , , , .

Hall of Fame defensive tackle Merlin Olsen, formerly of the Rams.

Merlin Olsen now rushes passers in greener pastures. We'll miss him.

Rams Nation (a Google search reveals that no one actually uses this term) mourns the loss of football legend and actor Merlin Olsen, who passed away today after a battle with mesothelioma. Olsen’s football career is beautifully remembered by Andy Barall of the New York Times (Briefly: a member of the Rams’ “Fearsome Foursome” defensive line and 14-time Pro Bowler). TV Squad remembers his acting career, which included a role on Little House on the Prairie and the title character on Father Murphy. Olsen blamed his illness on asbestos exposure during his acting work, and sued NBC and 20th Century Fox earlier this year.

We’ll miss #74.

The Rising Tide of Assburger's Syndrome

By: Sam, March 10, 2010 in Internet and Television. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .
We're pretty sure these burgers are all-beef.

Burgers, anyone?

Apparently last night’s episode of Parenthood on NBC (based on the 1989 Ron Howard/Brian Grazer movie of the same name) was about Asperger’s Syndrome. Not suprisingly, this propelled the term “asperger’s disease” to the number one spot on Google Trends for most of this morning. It wasn’t quite the right term, (Asperger’s is a syndrome, not a disease) but it was certainly close enough for curious searchers to learn that according to Wikipedia, it’s characterized by “significant difficulties in social interaction, along with restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests.”

What was more surprising this morning, was the number 3 trending search, “assburgers syndrome.” At least folks got the syndrome part right, and to Google’s credit, they do direct folks to Asperger’s from that search. (Maybe Google’s using some of the techniques Steven Levy details in this recent Wired article?)  Still it doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence in the general population’s spelling abilities/medical knowledge, but maybe now folks will learn? We’ll just have to wait and see.

Lindsay Lohan vs. E-Trade Baby: Fight!

By: Sam, March 9, 2010 in Television. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

When we heard that someone was suing E-Trade over one of their talking baby commercials, our first thought was “Wow, it took the Baby Bob guys long enough!” However, as bitter as Baby Bob creator and executive producer Michael Saltzman must be over the ads, we were way off.

The plaintiff is none other than Ms. Lindsay Lohan, noted celebrity, who alleges that E-Trade’s Super Bowl ad uses her “name and characterization” without her permission. Clearly, members of the impressionable public have been assuming that the “milkaholic” baby named Lindsay who appears in the last few seconds of the spot is Ms. Lohan… Wait. Why would anyone assume that? Because they have the same first name?

(Just to make sure we’re not missing some vital legal point, we called a lawyer friend who laughed his way to a very fast “No” when asked if Lohan had a case.)

Is Lindsay really this desperate for the spotlight or this hard up for cash? If she really wants to cash in on the whole talking-baby-likeness thing, she should probably be angling for a spot alongside John Travolta in the next Look Who’s Talking sequel.

Google’s SEO Report Card: Do as we say, not as we do

By: Sam, March 5, 2010 in Internet. 0 Comments Tags: , .
Google's SEO report card won't be earning them any Happy Meals, but it's not a big deal.

Sadly, Google does not have the SEO grades to get a free Happy Meal this time around.

This past Tuesday, Google released what they’re calling their SEO Report Card via the Google Webmaster Central Blog. The report card is available here in only-somewhat-unruly PDF format (thanks, Adobe!).

The overall results of the report card, which was based on a survey of the primary pages for 100 different Google products, are fairly straightforward: Google has lots of room for improvement. In fact, the only “Excellent” grade they earned was for “clear main page result on Google for [google product].” This probably shouldn’t be too surprising, as they run the search engine, too, so they’d be pretty remiss to whiff on not getting their main product pages featured clearly.

What’s telling about Google’s grades though, is how hard consistently good SEO really is. Any large web presence, even Google’s is susceptible to lapses and inconsistent implementations of SEO rules and policies.  By way of example, nearly one third of the pages examined in the report card used text styling instead of heading tags. Presumably, the folks at Google know better than this, but of course with so many people working on so many projects, it’s got to be hard to keep SEO a priority.

While Google’s SEO Report Card is a fantastic primer for anyone interested in SEO, and a good refresher for those who are already in the know, one thing to remember about the whole process is that Google is likely a special case. For Google, good SEO practices likely matter less than they do for any other website. This shouldn’t be too surprising, given that they run the most popular site in the world and the dominant search engine, but it’s something to keep in mind if you’re thinking that since Google’s got a lot of SEO improvements to make it’s OK if you’re lagging a bit too. It probably doesn’t matter how well-optimized Google’s pages are. They’re Google! They’re going to do just fine. You, on the other hand, probably need to hustle a little more to keep your pages high on the result pages.

So take some solace in the fact that Google’s SEO is far from ideal, but then make sure you get your own house in order, because you are not Google.

Is Justin Bieber a Hoax?

By: Sam, March 4, 2010 in Music. 2 Comments Tags: , , .
Teen sensation Justin Bieber may be a music industry hoax. Really. Think about it.

Justin Bieber wants YOU (to believe he's talented and not an industry puppet).

Hey tween girls! Justin Bieber!

Now that we’ve got your attention, allow us to blow your mind: Is Justin Bieber real? We can’t prove that he is. Obviously, there’s an actual (Canadian!) person named Justin Bieber, who makes a living as a “musical artist.” We don’t dispute that. But beyond these basic facts, well, it’s just possible that Justin Bieber is the greatest hoax of the 21st century.

Continue reading ‘Is Justin Bieber a Hoax?’