Crazy seems to happen around the Pacific North West fairly frequently. Perhaps its the weather. Perhaps its the nerve jolting volumes of caffeine consumed on the west coast. Perhaps it’s living beside the largest body of water in the world. Who knows why it happens but in the area between Northern California and Alaska, weirdness is often considered rational. For example, take Vista (please).

Now, there’s two typical types of crazy that happen up here in the mystic Pacific North West. One is the corporate chair bashing crazy everyone experiences from time to time. Such craziness, if applied conservatively with zest and fine timing can actually become endearing if it manifests as a proper release. If you happen to be the CEO of the world’s largest software corporation, such tantrums become the backbone of stories employees whisper to the new-kids in order to scare them back into line. This type of crazy foams over at the mouth only once or twice a year and is considered mostly harmless unless one is sitting in said chair at the time of outbreak.

The other type of craziness is a bit more insidious. Though it might appear harmless, this second form of crazy is more than a real bummer, it is spiritually and mentally transformational in all the worst ways. This kind of crazy happens when one is exposed to too many hippies. As one can imagine, there are quite a few hippie holdovers in the Pac NW. Acculturation is remarkably easy but often fraught with peril. Some otherwise rational people can be moved to suddenly change their name to Rainbow Horse Butterfly or some such silliness. Naturally,people start treating them funny after that.

That’s where Microsoft Live Search appears to be going. Rainbow Horse Butterfly land. It appears Microsoft Live Search is going to be rebranded Kumo, which is Japanese for spider and/or cloud. That’s nice eh?

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Nevertheless, for shoppers who like planning ahead — or for online retailers and etailers looking for what will be hot this holiday season — Lycos just announced its ninth annual list of the most popular toys and video games, based on web search activity.

(For a complete list and commentary of the Lycos Top Toys and Video Games of 2008, go to the Lycos 50. You can also voice your opinion on this year’s list, and weigh in on weekly Internet trends and pop culture on the Lycos 50 Blog or follow the Lycos 50 on Twitter.)

It shouldn’t come as a shock that Apple’s iPod holds the top spot as the #1 most-searched for toy this holiday season. But this year, the Apple frenzy includes hot-searched items like the iTouch and iPod Nano.

Harry Potter, at #11, makes a fifth consecutive appearance in 2008, with Harry Potter games, books and DVDs dominating Harry Potter-themed searches.

New in 2008 is KOTA, the Triceratops Dinosaur (#15), generating more search interest than Fisher Price’s New Elmo Live (#19). Meanwhile, not so hot in 2008 are Hannah Montana-related toy items, which made a big splash in 2007, but fail to make this year’s list.

Spongebob Squarepants (#14) takes over as the top licensed character-themed toy of 2008. Spongebob was last seen on the Lycos Top Toy list in 2005. And when it comes to dolls, Barbie (#6) continues to reign, extending her run on the annual Lycos list of Top Toys and Video Games to nine consecutive years of appearing in the Top 10. But there’s not enough data on Caribou Barbie to see if that will be a big hit this year — let alone in 2012.

Gaming consoles see a big resurgence in search popularity in 2008, with the Nintendo Wii (#10) capturing the most search interest, generating 25% more search activity than the Xbox 360 (#12) and Playstation 3 (#13). Also seeing a resurgence in 2008 are old school classics like Monopoly (#17), despite the current housing market.

Five of the top 25 toys in 2008 originate from the popular world of anime including Naruto (#3), Pokemon (#4), Dragonball (#5), Inuyasha (#7) and Gundam (#16). Meanwhile, one new toy making the 2008 list may be unfamiliar to most adults, but if search activity is any indication, expect the Bakugan Battle Brawlers (#24) to be flying off the shelves this holiday season.

On the video game front, the massive multi-player game RuneScape (#1) scores big with web users for the fourth consecutive year as the most-searched video game of 2008, while Final Fantasy makes its first appearance on the list since 2005, with Final Fantasy XIII (#3). Also racking up points online, making first-ever appearances on the top video games list, are war-themed games including Call of Duty: World at War (#9) and Gears of War 2 (#14), while Guitar Hero World Tour (#8) and Wii Fit (#15) are the most popular Wii-themed games based on web searches in 2008.

Also new in 2008 are Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 games Fable 2 (#17), Fallout 3 (#18), Street Fighter IV (#10), Dead Space (#19), Far Cry 2 (#22) and BioShock (#25). This also marks the fourth consecutive year the Madden football-themed games fail to make Lycos’s Top Toys and Video Games list.

As for me, I don’t do any Christmas shopping until the very last minute. That way, I don’t have to figure where to hide presents where my three kids (or wife) can find them before December 24th. Yep, when I say “last minute Christmas shopping” I mean last minute shopping. You’d be surprised how simple decisions are on Christmas eve.

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WebTrends CEO Alex Yoder said, “Jascha is a veteran digital marketer, and brings a successful track record of developing and executing strategies that enhance customer experience and deliver meaningful results. His background with Internet and software companies, along with his first-hand experience with WebTrends, has ideally prepared him to lead the delivery of WebTrends’ vision and solutions to the marketplace.”

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The news was much brighter for Google and AOL. Both saw sizeable increases at 8.1% and 14.5% respectively.

Google continues to dominate the search engine industry at a 61.2% market share.

Here’s the full chart:

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Only 57% of social network users have clicked on an ad in the last year versus 79% of all users in the rest of the web.

When it comes to purchasing, only 11% of social network users will actually make one compared to 23% of the rest of the internet.

“The thinking has been that the popularity of SNS will attract a big audience and generate a lot of traffic, which in turn will produce enormous amounts of user-generated content (UGC) and therefore advertising inventory – without any expenses for editorial staff or content distribution deals,” said Karsten Weide, program director, Digital Marketplace: Media and Advertising. “All of the above has proven true – except that almost invariably, SNS have had a hard time selling this inventory.”

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Matt Poepsel, vice president of Gomez, Inc., whose services test and monitor the performance of websites says that the increase of non-Internet Explorer browsers could cause some e-tailers grief.

“This year more than ever, websites can look and function differently from one browser to another. Online retailers can no longer assume that all shoppers are using Internet Explorer. They must ensure their sites look good and work well across a wide range of browsers - or risk frustrating customers and losing the sale.”

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So, I really hate to bring you the bad news, but keeping it from you would be a disservice.

Let’s just rip off the bandaid.

First up, eMarketer has lowered its projections for online advertising spending for 2009. The new growth number is 8.9%, down from 14.5% projected in August. They’re also expecting a long recovery, projecting 2010 growth to be just 10.9%. In five years, things will still be slower on the uptake (than in recent years). Projections for 2013 growth are at 13.5%. Silver lining: some of the tapering off is likely due to market saturation and not just the economy.

Next, eBay’s traffic is declining. In January of 2007, eBay saw 62 million unique visitors. Last month, they saw just 49 million. Sure, not all of that was due to the economy, but dipping below 50 million can’t be good for eBay.

I saved the worst for last. comScore has released data showing that online consumer spending for the first 23 days of November was down 4% from last year. That’s not a slow down in growth people, that’s flat out shrinkage.

But I’m not a total Scrooge. Unemployment numbers were better than expected this week. And at least one Slate columnist explains why fears of another Great Depression could be overblown (let’s hope he’s right!).

As we overdose on turkey, stuffing and pumpkin pie, let us not forget the ultimate strategy for marketing, business and life in general: Hope for the best but prepare for the worst.

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Tomorrow, everything American shuts down for an annual day of family, gratitude and spiritual reflection. The next day, Black Friday, everyone with credit left on their cards enters into an orgy of shopping. It’s an annual ritual that is almost Roman in its excess and in its social importance. All the holiday season sales start on Friday and the shopping will continue ’till the churches open their doors on Sunday morning. The national vibe then cycles back to spiritual reflection and everyone goes back to work the next day.

That’s the point we, the online marketing community, comes in. Since the mid-70’s, the Friday after Thanksgiving has been called “Black Friday”. Since the late-90’s, the Monday following Black Friday has been called “Cyber Monday”. That’s the day when people at work or at home head to the Internet to make or complete their holiday purchases. Both are important days for slightly different reasons.

Much of the news cycle on Friday and Saturday will be dedicated to how the brick-and-mortar retail sector fared on the opening days of the holiday season. With the economic outlook as bleak as it appears to be, the business and finance sectors will be watching the tales told by cash register tapes around America. A lower than expected rate of sales will bring news tinted by doom and gloom. A better than expected rate of sales will bring forth voices singing a tune of cautious joy.

Cyber Monday is considered as both a fallback and as an indicator. If Black Friday shows poorer than expected numbers, expect the financial world to wait with baited breath for Cyber Monday’s figures. That’s the fallback position. For those of us working in the digital marketing trenches however, Cyber Monday is an indicator of how the online economy is faring.

For the search and digital marketing industry, next week could be a very good week or it could be beyond bad. If it’s good, the industry will be far stronger than it is today. If numbers from Cyber Monday are bad however, the outcome could be disastrous for digital marketing firms based in regions were the credit-crisis has hit the hardest.

A good set of results from Cyber Monday would be reflective of consumers moving towards the Internet to save money on their holiday gift and entertaining purposes. An audible sigh of relief will be heard around the world if that happens. While online marketers fully understand the cost and resource savings associated with E-commerce purchases, the mainstream consumer world might or might not. Collectively, we already sense the numbers from Black Friday will be weaker than last year as we know consumer confidence is very low. Collectively, we hope the coming Cyber Monday will show stronger numbers than last year.

Given the doom and gloom expressed each evening on the news or in this case, in the Wall St. Journal, anything less than improved figures on Cyber Monday will be treated as an unmitigated disaster. The digital marketing community is already dealing with a deflated sense of hubris as the industry learns it is not in-fact immune to macro-economic conditions. Many US based SEM and online marketing firms are (this week) laying off staff and shuttering new initiatives. Poor numbers on Cyber Monday will send a palatable shutter through the Internet marketing industry and the business development sector of that industry.

That shudder will be radically premature, likely caused by critical misunderstanding of the misinformation being published out there. To be clear about this point, we have never faced this sort of situation before. The global economy is in rapid recession and could easily fall to depression. That is real. At the same time however, we have an alternative universal economic zone called the Internet. The Internet makes a world of difference at this time because of the cost savings it presents both businesses and consumers. While there is a direct connection between consumer confidence and online spending, the Internet economy WILL fare somewhat better than the mainstream economy and it will almost certainly recover far sooner.

We all hope Cyber Monday presents positive results. As an aside, the chairperson of SEMPO, (Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization), Dana Todd will be ringing the opening bell at the NASDAQ exchange on Cyber Monday morning.

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Cashback was down for about three hours last Friday and Live Search explained why with the following three reasons:

• A significant spike in traffic caused the system to go down for several hours on Friday
• The downtime was partly related to investigating the issue and partly to rebuilding and redeploying the databases and indexes that support Microsoft Live Search cashback.
• The issues that caused Friday’s problem have been resolved. We’re confident we won’t have further problems.

Contact Live Search support if you want to recoup your Cashback monies.

The new Instant Cashback is available via PayPal for eBay purchases. It will not be available for all users and you’ll only know if you’re one of the lucky ones after you make a purchase. If you’re not, then you’ll still get your Cashback deal in 60 days per the original plan.

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Co-founder Leah Culver stated in the blog, “We’re bittersweet about shutting down the service but we believe we’ll come back with something much better in 2009. We love the Pownce community and we will miss you all.”

“Mike and I have joined Six Apart as part of their engineering team and we’re looking forward to being a part of the talented group that has created amazing tools for blogging and publishing,” he explained.

Given the technology will join Six Apart and that company’s strength in the blogging software arena, Leah’s comment that they should be coming back in 2009 with something “much better” is intriguing.

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