Black Friday Online

Black Friday is upon us once again, a joyous occasion where Americans show just how far they’ll go to save a buck. Of course for many that’s very important these days, so I imaged this Black Friday to be especially crazy. While we have to wait till early tomorrow morning to find out, we can get some insight thanks to Google Trends. 

As I was scanning it tonight I thought it spoke very well for the current economy here in the states. With tighter budgets this year, where is everyone looking for deals? Let’s take a look at current search trend rankings and find out.

Right away in the top spots we see outlets are going to be big. I’ve watched trends over a few Black Fridays and never seen this many listings for outlets, in fact other outlet related terms are included throughout the rest of the list (over a dozen times). Looks like folks are going to try to score deals on already discounted goods this year.

Further down we see Apple and iPods are still the hot product to snap up. I’m sure they will do just fine this year, unlike many other retailers who don’t start to appear till further down the ranking list.

Finally we start to see some of the big name retailers, all the usual suspects are here. Circuit city placed a little higher as well, with their recent bankruptcy announcement you can bet they’ll see lots of looters shoppers.

Eck the rack! That’s like where clothes go to die.

Finally down at the very very end of the like we have Saks. The premium department store is still generating some buzz, but not even close to the others.

So there you have it, I encourage you to scan trends a few times over the course of the day. It’s a unique insight into this strange pastime. 

As for me, I’ll be doing all my shopping with Amazon Prime this year.

Just a few days after launching SearchWiki, the service has suddenly disappeared. TechCrunch points out the new feature was less than well received. Users even went as far as to create GreaseMonkey scripts to disable it.

Personally I found it interesting but not something I’d want without a better opt-out function. I can’t help but think of the valuable data Google could mine from this, at the same time that creeps me (and many others) out. Google should keep the core search as it, and roll these properties out as supplements to that.

The big G giveth, and taketh away. No official word yet if it’ll reemerge.

Update: A commenter on Steve Rubel’s blog says its moved to Google Labs.

The new voice based Google app for the iPhone has finally available. If you can’t get it through your phone yet, click this link, download, then sync up. I just got it setup and put it through a few tests, so far pretty good results, even with my stuffy nose it picks up 95% of queries spot on.

Here is some video of me testing it out:

What Others Are Saying:

• Official Blog
• TechCrunch
• Venturebeat
• Matt Cutts

I was sent this great interview with Google developer Kevin Marks from Theme-Zoom and The Technology Goddess.  Kevin gives us some great insight into the big G.

Here are a few topics covered:

- How many Open Social applications exist at Google?

- Why is the concept of “data portability” a misnomer?

- How does Social Graph work with the publicly declared connections, XHTML friends networks, XFN markup and FOAF (friend of a friend)?

- What are Google’s plans for XFN and FOAF as it relates to Search Engine Optimization? (This has been heavily debated and Kevin puts this controversy to rest).

- What does it mean (exactly) that Googlebot follows XFN and FOAF? (This has also been heavily debated and Kevin puts this controversy to rest).

- How will the recent “geek disputes” about this issue effect the proprietary and Google patented “influence rank” concept? (This is also called “friend rank” or “social value rank” by the Internet Marketing pundits).

- Can you expect good conversion using this sort of “influence rank” as a predictor? (Kevin really exposes the issues that Google has been sorting through in order to adequately answer this question).

- What is the best way to use social networks from a branding and advertising?

- When will Friend Connect be released and why is it taking so long?

and much more, check it out and enjoy.

This is too good, Mail Goggles out of the Google Labs helps prevent the dreaded drunken email. It actually makes you answer some math questions (as seen above) before you can send that late friday night email to your ex.

Someone should roll a similar service for text messaging.

What Others Are Saying:

• MG Siegler
• Louis Gray