Getting into the holiday spirit, I decided to use Google Universal Search in order to find any indication if Los Angeles – the town I live – has the slightest chance against infamous christmas-y New York.

Like many others who love L.A. I get shocked when December approaches and I become aware that this city doesn’t have a official Christmas tree. But one can still hope…

Google’s universal search (meaning the inclusion of any keyword-related results, such as pictures, books, news stories etc.) for “New York Christmas” not only lists nice pictures of Christmas trees in the “Big Apple”, but also news stories about Billy Joel’s anti-war Christmas single.

And some New York residents actually OBJECTING a public Christmas tree!

What about the “Los Angeles Christmas”? Oh my, the search results paint a sad, sad picture. No L.A. related Christmas photos, no YouTube videos, no relevant books. Nothing. Zilch.

The only Lala Land relevant Christmas ‘universal’ search result is a news article about “24″ TV star Kiefer Sutherland who will spend Xmas in prison for his second arrest for drunk-driving!

Depressing – but so L.A.!!

Tags: google, Search, seo

Well, there were gazillions of search news out there todays, but I thought these were some of the most interesting insights:

- With 20 billion to 35 billion worldwide searches in 2006/2007, search growth is as strong as ever. (Via ClickZ)

- Google remained in the top spot for search queries in the United States, accounted for 64.49 percent of all searches (Hitwise)

- More than $14 billion has been spent online during the holiday season-to-date – a 17 percent gain compared with the corresponding days last year. (via MarketingVox)

- Nearly 400 million Google search referrals are to its own multimedia properties. (via ClickZ)

- Local search is expected to grow from rougly $2.5 billion today to $5 billion in 2008. (via SearchEngineLand).

- In the third quarter of this year, more than one of four clicks on ads running on content networks like Google’s AdSense and the Yahoo Publisher Network was fraudulent. (via Mediapost)

- The caches of major search engines are still providing a safe hiding place for malicious code. (Computerworld)

- Google will very soon begin treating subdomains not as separate domains, but the same as subdirectories. (via Webmasterworld)

- Search Engines can help you to find a “dead” spouse. (via SearchEngineLand)

- And last, but not least: Larry Page, the world’s only remaining bachelor Google billionaire, is getting married today. (via ABC News)

Congratulations, Larry! Hope your first child will have cute googly eyes!

Tags: google, Internet, Search, trends

Did you always wanted to know how internet savvy the Europeans really are? Here are a couple of interesting facts – fresh off the press and provided by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European communities:

• Internet access across the EU is increasing, with 54 per cent of households having access of some sort, compared 49 per cent last year.
• The highest proportions of households with internet access were recorded in the nordic countries: Netherlands (83%), Sweden (79%) and Denmark (78%).
• The UK, usually know as internet savvy and technologically advanced, is trailing the Nordic leader with 67%.
• 57% of individuals had used internet search engines.
• 50% had sent e-mails with attachments.
• 30% said they kept viruses and spyware off their computers.
• 25% of individuals had taken part in chatrooms, newsgroups or online discussions.
• 15% had used the internet to make phone calls.
• Peer to peer file sharing for exchange of movies and music had been used by 13%.
• Only 10% had created a web page.

Despite the fact that most of these numbers are lower than the ones in the United States, this study proves that internet access is gradually extending across the 27 states of the European Union – especially broadband connections have risen sharply.

Tags: europe, Internet, Search