Apple shares drop as Stevie pulls out of Macworld

Fears have grown about the health of Apple CEO Steve Jobs who will not deliver his customary keynote address at the Macworld trade show next month.

Apple shares were down 3% on the news as Apple sites buzzed with speculation that Jobs decision not to address one of the highlights of the Mac calendar was related to his health and possibly that Apple was behind on product delivery.

I’m hoping as a by-product the price of macs will also plummet as I’ve been coveting a new MacBook and I know Andrew would love one to replace his rather temperamental windows laptop.

Apple Store

New Popbitch book

Popbitch: Celebrity Excess And Other Monkey Business

Popbitch: Celebrity Excess And Other Monkey Business
Popbitch: Celebrity Excess And Other Monkey Business

This year Popbitch decided to publish a book as a complement to their irreverant mailings. Allegedly it has some of our favourite stories of the last nine years and, unlike their text-only emails, photos (cute animal plus celebrities), two board games, Kerry Katona’s 2009 diary, what publicists really mean when their lips move, a history of Popbitch since Neolithic days, various quizzes, jokes, otters and other stuff. I can’t wait and have added it to my wishlist for Santa.

Top ten searches of 2008 on google

It’s that time of year again when Google release their zeitgeist listing the most searched for terms of 2008 split out by country – it’s like having your very own research director except you don’t get to ask specific questions.
Top tens though work well I find – it’s a proven editorial technique alongside top trumps and image galleries.

I’m always amazed though how much information the search giant is prepared to share with us the general public. Obviously it’s an edited set of data – I know for instance despite appearances some terms searched for will never appear on this top ten list.

Unlike the AOL search data nothing personally identifiable is available – although this is more to do with it being aggregated and not the raw data.

Google is in a unique position to show trends but importantly as a yearly round up this also gives us a great insight into the hopes and fears of the online population.

In the UK for instance there has been a lot of press about the banking crisis and this has meant that banks and banking in general have been popular search terms – icesave for instance was in the media for weeks so it’s no surprise that it appears top of the financial institutions list. I’m surprised though that Northern Rock hasn’t made it into the top ten considering it’s plight earlier in the year.

Fastest rising finance-related searches in the UK
icesave
hot uk deals
natwest
hmrc
hbos
money saving expert
halifax
barclays
rbs
lloyds tsb

The most searched terms in the UK for 2008 though are
Facebook
BBC
YouTube
eBay
Games
News
Hotmail
Bebo
Yahoo
Jobs

Although if you are interested the fastest rising search terms in the UK which might indicate trends for 2008 are
iPlayer
Facebook
iPhone
Youtube
Yahoo Mail
Large Hadron Collider
Obama
Friv
Cam4
Jogos

If you are interested in the most searched for politicians or recipes then you can find the rest of the top ten search terms over at Google zeitgeist

Take That – The Circus only £3

I love the internet and just when you think it can’t get any better Amazon launch a new MP3 download service to compete with Apple iTunes store and sell albums from only £3 including Snow Patrol – A Hundred Million Suns, Kings of Leon – Only By The Night, Mamma Mia! The Movie Soundtrack, Will Young – Let It Go, Girls Aloud – Tangled Up and of course not forgetting the man band currently fronting the M&S advertising campaign Take That – The Circus at Amazon for only £3