The Grand Celebrity Match-Up

The Grand Celebrity Match-Up

7/21/09

As we saw in an earlier post,  we can compare apples and oranges, writers and politicians. Or anything else that appears on web sites.  For this post, we’re going to look at the big winners in several of the groups and pit their numbers against other. I’ve only used those people or phenomena with single-word designations. So here we go:

Life = 1,920,000,000

Facebook = 1,420,000,000

Mp3 = 1,220,000,000

War = 883,000,000

Microsoft = 587,000,000

Sex = 576,000,000

God = 483,000,000

Earth = 456,000,000

Obama = 225,000,000

Wine = 212,000,000

BMW = 182,000,000

Heaven = 162,000,000

Disney = 151,000,000

Chocolate = 139,000,000

Beer = 128,000,000

Wealth = 98,900,000

Christianity = 88,500,000

Death = 78,800,000

Shakespeare = 65,200,000

Beatles = 49,800,000

Einstein = 33,200,000

Mozart = 32,000,000

Islam = 23,500,000

Beethoven = 22,500,000

For the chart, I only took the English language cities:

A celebrity is one who is known to many persons he is glad he doesn’t know. — Lord Byron

Celebrity and secrets don’t go together. The bastards will get you in the end. — George Michael

Celebrity distorts democracy by giving the rich, beautiful, and famous more authority than they deserve. — Maureen Dowd

Being a celebrity is probably the closest to being a beautiful woman as you can get. — Kevin Costner

[Not quite about celebrity, but worth mulling:]

Men are deceived by the false resemblances of success to merit. To the crowd, success wears almost the features of true mastery, and the greatest dupe of this counterfeit talent is History. — Hugo,Les Miserables

Sports in America

Sports in America

7/18/2009

Baseball +America = 361,000,000

Golf +America = 92,800,000

Football +America = 87,200,000

Tennis +America = 70,800,000

Soccer +America = 49,100,000

Basketball +America = 40,500,000

Hockey +America = 26,900,000

Boxing +America = 25,400,000

 

Baseball is the only field of endeavor where a man can succeed three times out of ten and be considered a good performer. — Ted Williams

Golf is a day spent in strenuous idleness.– William Wordsworth

I always turn to the sports section first.  The sports page records people’s accomplishments; the front page has nothing but man’s failures.  – Earl Warren

The more I practice, the luckier I get.  – Jerry Barber

Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play.  It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence:  in other words, it is war minus the shooting… there are quite enough real causes of trouble already, and we need not add to them by encouraging young men to kick each other on the shins amid the roars of infuriated spectators.  – George Orwell

Card Games and Board Games

Card Games and Board Games

7/15/09

Google numbers for web pages with these games cited:

poker +game = 32,400,000

warcraft +game = 19,500,000

chess +game = 8,960,000

blackjack +game = 4,200,000

monopoly +game = 2,160,000

checkers +game = 951,000

Though poker is clearly the champ game, World of Warcraft shows up as a much sought-after topic in many countries:

 

[Poker] exemplifies the worst aspects of capitalism that have made our country so great.  ~Walter Matthau

 

“Chess is the gymnasium of the mind.”  — Lenin

 

“If you must play, decide on three things at the start: the rules of the game, the stakes, and the quitting time” – Chinese proverb

Women in Politics

Women in Politics

7/11/09

“Sarah Palin” = 39,700,000”

“Sonia Sotomayor” = 27,000,000

“Hilary Clinton” = 18,200,000

“Angela Merkel” = 7,440,000

“Queen Victoria” = 4,890,000

“Margaret Thatcher” = 4,880,000

“Indira Ghandi” = 3,040,000

“Nancy Pelosi” = 927,000

“Golda Meir” =  512,000

“Eleanor of Aquitaine” = 215,000

Sarah Palin clearly leads here. It is interesting to note that, while there are millions of google pages that mention Sonia Sotomayor, there are few  web searches for information about her.

My father was a statesman, I’m a political woman. My father was a saint. I’m not. — Indira Gandhi

You’ll never find a better sparring partner than adversity. — Golda Meir

The important thing is not what they think of me, but what i think of them. — Queen Victoria

I have to confess that it has crossed my mind that you could not be a Republican and a Christian.  – Hillary Clinton

Women in Sports

No surprises here, except (at least for me) the #3 slot. It’s evident that fame is a fleeting thing for sports heroes; however, past high achievers do stay in the memories of some folks, as measured by the number of web content citations of long-ago sports stars.

Women in Sports

7/7/09

“Serena Williams” = 11,300,000

“Venus Williams” = 2,890,000

“Shirley Ballas” = 1,000,000

“Nadia Comaneci” = 907,000

“Chris Evert” = 731,000

“Kristi Yamaguchi” =  679,000

“Martina Navratilova” = 477,000

“Billie Jean King” = 393,000

“Jackie Joyner-Kersee” = 97,600

“Dorothy Hamill” = 96,200

“Sheryl Swoopes” = 90,500

“Althea Gibson” = 89,800

“Sonja Henie” = 88,000

“Olga Korbut” = 49,300

“Babe Didrikson Zaharias” = 48,100

“Jayne Torvill” = 33,100

I wonder what it would feel like to be the second most famous athlete, knowing that the only person whose fame exceeds yours is your sister’s. Here are the google results for searches.The Williams sisters so far outdistance all the others that they are the only two names that register in any women’s sports graph that includes them:

“If you can keep playing tennis when somebody is shooting a gun down the street, that’s concentration.” – Serena Williams

“When you lose, you’re more motivated. When you win, you fail to see your mistakes and probably no one can tell you anything.” – Venus Williams

“Shaking hands with the Queen of England was a long way from being forced to sit in the colored section of the bus going into downtown Wilmington, North Carolina.” – Althea Gibson

“People in the States used to think that if girls were good at sports their sexuality would be affected. Being feminine meant being a cheerleader, not being an athlete. The image of women is changing now. You don’t have to be pretty for people to come and see you play. At the same time, if you’re a good athlete, it doesn’t mean you’re not a woman.” — Martina Navratilova

Famous Women #1: Artists, Writers, and Performers

I’m sure I let someone important off this list of google content numbers, so let me know if I need to include anyone else. Updates and corrections are easy in this mode.

Famous Women #1: Artists and Writers

7/04.2009

“Beyoncé” = 14,800,000

“Marilyn Monroe” = 12,600,000

“Jane Austen” = 6,070,000

“Merly Streep” = 4,400,000

“Ella Fitzgerald” = 3,690,000

“Janis Joplin” = 3.640,000

“Ayn Rand” = 3,250,000

“Yoko Ono” = 2,910,000

“Billie Holiday” = 2,870,000

“Frida Kahlo” = 2,340,000

“George Eliot” = 2,280,000

“Midori” +music = 1,940,000

“Mary Shelley” = 1,910,000

“Joan Baez” = 1,900,000

“Sappho” = 1,780,000

“Simone de Beauvoir” = 1,370,000

“Toni Morrison” = 1,250,000

“Annie Leibovitz” = 1,550,000

“Harriet Beecher Stow” = 884,000

“Susan Sontag” = 807,000

“Camille Claudel” = 779,000

“Lena Horne” = 772,000

“Leni Riefenstahl” = 694,000

“Geogia O’Keefe” = 293,000

“Edna St. Vincent Millay” = 220,000

“Kathleen Battle” = 200,000

“Anna Pavlova” = 176,000

“Nadia Boulanger” = 113,000

“Lady Murasaki” = 63,200

“Susanne Langer” = 39,000

“Elizabeth Vigée –Lebrun” = 21,300

Here are the charts for the four who are high on the list:

Note what happens if we make Janis Joplin the point of comparison:

Husbands and wives generally understand when opposition will be vain. — Jane Austen

The reward of one duty is the power to fulfill another. — George Eliot

It isn’t where you came from, its where you’re going that counts. — Ella Fitzgerald

Sometimes it’s worse to win a fight than to lose. — Billie Holiday

On stage I make love to twenty five thousand people; and then I go home alone. — Janis Joplin

The more successful I become, the more I need a man. — Beyoncé Knowles

Cars

CARS

6/30/2009

Here are the google numbers for automobiles. Some could not be represented in this single-word search, because there are other meanings for the word (i.e., Fiat and Ford). So, with that caveat, here are the numbers:

BMW = 198,000,000
Honda = 177,000,000
Toyota = 148,000,000
Renault = 96,500,000
Volkswagen = 89,400,000
Volvo = 84,900,000
Chevrolet = 84,200,000
(Just a sidenote: Corvette = 23,600.000)
Kia = 78,300,000
Mercedes-Benz = 77,100,000
Chrysler = 76,900,000
Ferrari = 30,000,000
(For the sake of nostalgia: Studebaker = 3,670,000)

Here is a graph for the searches on four of the car-makers:

For the chart, I chose to look at the searches using Chevrolet as the beginning figure. Given the relations between the United States and Venezuela these days, the second figure on the chart might give us food for thought:

Some quotations worth considering:

An artist who has traveled on a steam train, driven an automobile, or flown in an airplane doesn’t feel the same way about form and space as one who has not.
  — Stuart Davis

If the automobile had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get one million miles to the gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone inside.
 — Robert  Cringely

That the automobile has practically reached the limit of its development is suggested by the fact that during the past year no improvements of a radical nature have been introduced.
 —  Scientific American, June 2, 1909.

Internet Community Sites

For today’s entries, we’re looking at internet community sites: not just social networking, but places where people gather, do stuff, and interact. Here’s what google reveals about the size of these places as measured by total web page content:

Facebook = 1,350,000,000

Youtube = 1,130,000,000

Myspace = 641,000

Ebay = 468,000

Amazon.com = 396,000

Flickr = 278,000

twitter.com = 238,000

“World of Warcraft” = 57,400,000

The graph shows, among other things, the dramatic rise of facebook and youtube. But there are other very interesting trends that emerge in the charts:

Each of the following charts was generated by using one of the four enterprises as the leading comparison. First, facebook as the comparison point:

Next, myspace:

Then Youtube:

And finally, eBay:

A few quotes about internet communities:

*******

Any companies think that building a virtual community is as simple as throwing up a cool Web site that compels people to visit every day. Dream on. These sites are commercials, not communities. If you want to build a virtual community, here are the principles to implement:

Community before commerce

Communication comes next

Place the community’s interests above your own

Tolerate criticism

Encourage “personalities.”

– Guy  Kawasaki (fuller elaboration of these ideas at: http://www.gaia.com/quotes/topics/internet)

******

Cyberspace undeniably reflects some form of geography.

– Justice O’Connor

******

In Cyberspace, the First Amendment is a local ordinance.

– John Perry Barlow

Previous Post: Shakespeare’s Plays

SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS

Here is the google list for pages containing references to some of Shakespeare’s most famous plays. The numbers might surprise you, as they did me. I would have thought that Hamlet would outrank most of all of the plays above it.

Shakespeare’s Plays

June 23, 2009

“Julius Caesar” + Shakespeare = 5,310,000

“Romeo and Juliet” + Shakespeare = 5,110,000

“Henry V” + Shakespeare = 2,560,000

“Midsummer Night’s Dream”  + Shakespeare = 2,400,000

“The Tempest” + Shakespeare = 1,930,000

“Henry IV” + Shakespeare = 1,670,000 (Counts for Henry IV parts one and two)

“Merchant of Venice” + Shakespeare = 1,550,000

“Winter’s Tale” + Shakespeare = 989.000

“Hamlet” + Shakespeare = 903,000

“Richard II” + Shakespeare = 888,000

“Coriolanus” + Shakespeare = 593,000

“Macbeth” + Shakespeare = 588,000

“Othello” +  Shakespeare = 321,000

Searches for three Shakespearean tragic heroes:

Guess where the greatest percentage of people want to know about Hamlet?

I can’t add anything to the many volumes dealing with Shakespeare’s work, ideas, and milieu. So here are a few of my favorite, less-known quotes:

“There’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face.” – Macbeth

“The strongest oaths are straw to the fire in the blood.” — The Tempest

“If all the year were playing holidays,

To sport would be as tedious as to work.”

– Henry IV, Part One

That’s enough quotes, because a little more than a little is by much too much.

Wines Post #1

Wine Varieties

6/13/09

I just finished Robin Goldstein’s clever book, The Wine Trials, in which he sets about questioning the relation between wine and pricing. His observations and conclusions got me thinking about which wines were most popular, and which vineyards and the highest visibility on Google. Goldstein says that Australia’s Yellowtail is the most popular wine in the world. So, in that spirit, here’s a look at the internet page content devoted to specific varietals:

“champagne” +wine = 12,100,000

“cabernet sauvignon” +wine = 4,480,000

“pinot noir” +wine = 4,250,000

“sauvignon blanc” +wine = 2,980,000

“chianti” +wine = 2,130,000

“chardonnay” +wine = 1,550,000

“merlot” +wine = 1,070,000

“syrah” +wine = 853,000

“shiraz” +wine = 700,000

“riesling” +wine = 733,000

“zinfandel” +wine = 432,000

“muscat” +wine = 213,000

“gewurztraminer” +wine = 162,000

Champagne so far outdistances the other types of wine that the Google Trends graphs reveal nothing interesting. However, the charts, measured among cabernet, Chardonnay, and champagne, reveal some interesting differences among American cities. The Los Angeles area is more like New York than the San Francisco Bay Area – a fact that we San Franciscans have suspected for a long time.   :<)

Next time we’ll take a look at the internet visibility of specific vineyards.From Wikianswers

In a business plan, what percentage of sales should be from alcoholic beverages?

Fancy: 36.91 %

Middle-Class: 12.69%

*****

– Dataessentials Menutrends Direct 2008, determined by polling 4,840 U.S. chains and independents.