It's Beginning To Look a Lot Like...You Guessed It...the Holidays

No doubt you've already heard Christmas carols at the mall (I have, and I scurried away as fast as I could since that music should NEVER start playing until the day after Thanksgiving, thank you). And turkey extravaganza comes next week. True to the season(s), bloggers are starting to drop hints about shopping (today's 7th most popular key phrase), next week's long holiday weekend and even Christmas trees. Not surprisingly, Thanksgiving and Christmas dominate holiday-related buzz in the blogosphere, according to a BlogPulse trend graph (the October Thanksgiving spike refers to Canada's Thanksgiving celebration):



Hot new stuff from Google
They never seem to quit at Google, and today's most popularly shared link takes users directly to Google Analytics, a new web analytics tool. PlasticBag.org is impressed with the features. Popularity of the new service is evident in the multi-language citations about Google Analytics...five of the first 10 are non-English links.

Still hot-under-the-collar re: Sony
Sony BMG, meanwhile, is backtracking on its anti-piracy CDs.

And more heat targeted at Target
The bloggers at Ameriblog and Hughes for America are launching a boycott of Target, which is allowing its on-staff pharmacists to delay or not fill prescriptions for the Plan B morning-after contraceptive on moral grounds. "Target is caving to America's Taliban, and it needs to stop," says John at Ameriblog, today's No. 5 top blog post. As always, bloggers react.

Today's moment of levity
For those who loved Theodor Geisel's rhymes, you'll love today's 39th most popular link: "If Dr. Seuss Wrote for Star Trek.