We saw how media attention drove Twitter’s share of searchers on the Iran Election to record heights two weeks ago. A barrage of mainstream media and blogosphere chatter swarmed the digerati’s collective consciousness, fusing their favorite techno-democratic phenom with Iranian political discontent.

Then the white glove dropped. MJ’s passing sent a megaton shock through the worldwide pop firmament of Planet Earth, rousing memories of Thriller from billions, even the Haters.

The web was not spared. Visitors shattered records Yahoo! News. Tweets swarmed across Twitter. Video streams flooded the online channels CNN and MTV. And updates exploded at Facebook. As CNN reported, “Jackson dies, almost takes Internet with him.”

Michael told the Iran Election to Beat It. Over 24 times more searchers hit top search engines, news sites like CNN and the New York Times and social media sites like Facebook and Twitter on Jackson’s death than on the Iranian election shenanigans.

Where did MJ searchers go? Google. The King of Pop gave back the King of Search its crown.

But the royal succession was not without a few princely hiccups. Twitter disabled the search box and Trending Topics sidebar on profile pages for 4 hours following the “avalanche” of tweets after MJ’s death. And Google blocked MJ searches for 25 minutes, mistaking the incoming torrent as an internationally coordinated cyber-attack of zombie bots.

Fans surged to music, video and retail sites to rekindle memories of his hit songs and music videos to bid farewell to the King of Pop. Yahoo! Music led the way with 45% share of visitors, and YouTube delivered a respectable 23% share.

Meanwhile Michael was still shattering music sales records mors immatura.

I must admit, I am quite taken with the Palm Pre. The hype, predictably, has been enormous. And the handset itself is very well put together. Online reviews rave about it. After playing with my friend’s new Pre, I have to agree with them: it is one cool handset.

But before the Pre could bask in the media spotlight for long, Apple whooshed in two days later to announce its newest iPhone, the 3G S, and that the 3G would sell for as little as $99.

So how has this move affected overall interest in the Pre?

This chart shows the percentage of people viewing the Palm Pre who also looked at the Apple iPhone 3G S online in the same week. Interest in the Pre is defined here as anyone who looked at a Pre-related webpage hosted by Palm or Sprint (or both). Similarly, interest in the iPhone 3G S includes anyone who viewed iPhone 3G S-related web pages at Apple or AT&T (or both). Before the announcement of the iPhone 3G S, interest traffic for the iPhone represents the iPhone 3G.

Here we see that:

• Before the iPhone 3G S was officially announced on June 6th, only about 2.5% of people who looked at the Palm Pre online also viewed the iPhone 3G
• However, once the iPhone 3G S announcement was made, traffic to the iPhone 3G S by Palm Pre shoppers jumped 104%, signaling that the Pre definitely had to share the limelight with the new iPhone 3G S
• By the time the iPhone 3G S was available, just a week after it was announced, consideration of the device by Palm Pre shoppers dropped by about 25%

While the decrease in cross shopping seems to suggest that the iPhone 3G S will not continue to distract Pre shoppers, handset interest data shines a different light on the situation. Interest in the Pre predictably shot up during the week of its launch and the week after as marketing efforts and press coverage reached a fever pitch. However in the second week after launch, Pre interest dropped sharply to levels it had prior to launch, as shown in the chart below.

This suggests that the Pre may indeed have lost its thunder online, though it is unclear at this point if interest has transferred to the iPhone 3G S or simply faded away. Certainly, consideration of both models decreased after the initial excitement of the Palm Pre’s launch and the iPhone 3G S announcement passed, which could indicate that distinct fan bases have emerged for each phone.

Still, much remains to be seen over the next few weeks, as each phone works to establish and sustain its fan base. There are also more opportunities to drive online interest in the Palm Pre to counter the iPhone. Selling the device online is one possibility. Encouraging development of more applications to rival the iTunes App Store by releasing the software development kit more broadly (which Palm says they will do “by the end of this summer”) could also entice consumers.

Challenging the iPhone’s dominance is no small task, but we’ll be watching over the next few months to see if the Palm Pre is the device that will rise to the occasion.

Compete recently held a webinar in which we analyzed the role that search plays in consumers’ online research for auto insurance. The study revealed some interesting findings about just how prevalent search is within the consumer buying cycle. Some of the key findings from this webinar include:

• Online auto insurance shopper volume has increased and price is the key driver of consumer choice
  
  • 90% of those looking to replace an existing policy cite price as the reason
  
• Most consumers apply online and search is the second most used resource in the shopping process trailing only issuer websites
  • 56% of online auto insurance shoppers, who ultimately apply, do so online
  
• Shoppers use search frequently with application rates increasing with number of queries
  • 57% of shoppers perform multiple search queries
  
• Shoppers utilize both brand and non-brand search terms with non-brand driving better conversion
  • Non-brand terms convert at ~2x the rate of brand terms
  
• Search is used throughout the consumer shopping cycle
  • 50% of search referrals occur outside of the conversion session, thus indicating that consumers leverage search at the very early stages of their shopping process when they might not yet be ready to transact
  

In sum, despite the current economic recession we have actually seen online auto insurance shopper volume increase with price being the key driver leading consumers to look for new insurance. We also found that consumers not only use the online channel for auto insurance shopping, but are also most likely to choose this channel to ultimately apply. Finally, our data indicates that search plays a significant role in consumers’ online research for auto insurance. Auto insurance shoppers use search frequently and at multiple stages of their research process.

Please note that a replay of this webinar can be viewed at the following link: http://compete.na3.acrobat.com/autoinsurreplay/

They say things come in threes, but I don’t think anyone expected the final glove to fall with such shocking news. Last week’s trio of celebrity death’s started with TV Icon, Ed McMahon (86), Super Model, Farrah Fawcett (62), and ended with the “King of Pop,” Michael Jackson (51). Sure, the passing of Mr. McMahon and Ms. Fawcett was given main stream media attention. However, MJ’s death caused an online traffic frenzy of record breaking proportions.

How many people hit the web to get the skinny on MJ? Millions would be a conservative estimate. In fact, Yahoo! News set an all time record of 16.4 million UVs (unique visitors) on Thursday. Celebrity gossip site, tmz.com, received so much traffic that their servers reportedly crashed multiple times. Google was also a victim as the New York Post reported that Google News had to actually block the term “Michael Jackson” to prevent their site from crashing.

Using Compete’s daily online traffic metrics, reach and attention, we’re able to get a real sense of just how many online users in the US were surfing celebrity gossip sites to get their MJ updates.

Reach lets us to see what percentage of U.S. Internet users online visited a particular website on a particular day. Tmz.com, who broke the story of MJ’s death, reached 1.9% of the total US online population on 6/25. That’s a 438% increase from 6/24 and a 527% increase year over year. Other celebrity news sites experienced the same trend – eonline.com (up 213% to 1.3% of total US traffic), people.com (up 70% to .54% of total US traffic), perezhilton.com (up 28% to .45% of total US traffic), and ew.com (up 49% to .21% of total US traffic). These five sites alone reached 4.42% of all U.S. Internet users online.

Attention is a metric that considers the collective time all U.S. Internet users spend online and calculates what percentage of that time was spent on a given website on a particular day. Once again, tmz.com showed the greatest increase on 6/25, up 478% over the day before and 272% year over year to .037% of all time spent online. However, people.com garnered the most attention of all the celebrity sites on that day with .053% of total time spent online (up 71% from 6/24 and 50% year over year). The other celebrity sites also showed increases - eonline.com (up 175% to .032% of total US traffic), perezhilton.com (up 28% to .45% of total US traffic), and ew.com (up 49% to .21% of total US traffic).

Although some may credit MJ’s never-ending fame to his character flaws ridden with tabloid headlines, his musical career was undoubtedly flooded with accomplishments – 2 time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, 13 time Grammy Award winner, and over 750 million records sold worldwide to name a few. The polarizing effect of his personal life’s blunders and undeniable talent obviously kept audiences captivated and will continue to captivate them for years to come. His passing even added another notch to his belt – “king of the Internet”… for a day.

Jack Kiefer, the founder, President, and CEO of BabyAge.com, has some interesting insights on the current trends in digital marketing after being in the game for many years. He shares his thoughts on the evolution of customer acquisition over the past decade, from AOL to shopping comparison to Google, and where it is heading now. BabyAge.com has also been able cut back on their search spend without seeing a drop in revenue by being more targeted with their approach.

For more digital marketing insights from various industry leaders, check out the Digital 180 channel and check back with the Compete blog for updates.

Last week’s craze over Twitter and Iran was the height of media buzzdom. Democracy + social media + possible election fraud = PR Gold. The State Department asking Twitter to delay server maintenance? A former National Security Advisor honcho suggesting Twitter should get the Nobel Prize?! That’s so good, even the craziest novelist couldn’t make it up.

But what was really happening in Iran and on Twitter? Some sobering thoughts suggest that Twitter may not have been that widely embraced inside Iran. Other reports suggest that the government has been actively suppressing digital resistance.

Meanwhile, a few terrifying and sad reports have leaked out, like protest violence photos and the Neda video, displaying the immediacy and emotional impact of social media.

Outside Iran, these scant bits have whipped the disenfranchised Diaspora and simpatico millions to take to the streets and social media streams. Starved for the latest and eager to commune, they have pollinated the web with millions of bits of Iran Election information – on leading search engines, news sites, wikis, social networks, sharing services and real time search engines.

Taking a web-wide view, Compete looked at searchers on “Iran+Election” at over 25 sites like Google, the New York Times, Wikipedia, Facebook, YouTube, real-time search startup OneRiot and, of course, Twitter.

It’s no surprise that Twitter claimed 55% of searchers the week after the Election, given all the media hoopla. But note that Google was the leading search property in the days leading up to the event, the day itself and the day after. Searchers used Google to learn more about the event before it happened and Twitter to get the latest on the fallout.

As OneRiot has written about, there’s a bit of an outstanding question among Google, Twitter and others: who will win real time search?

Search doesn’t equate to media consumption. With Iran in the headlines on nytimes.com and streaming down Twitter apps as #IranElection, people don’t need to search for the latest. But many will search nonetheless, especially the highly engaged.