To finish up my analysis of search trends on American Idol 5 and it’s winners (see my last two posts if you want more information -  Idling In America - Search Trends from AdCenter ,  Idling In America II - Search Demographics from AdCenter )

 The location where finalists come from are often a part of who votes strongly; and that includes artists that have a strong fan base, like Clay Aiken.

For Clay Aiken’s searcher audience (those who searched for him in May 06 on MSN) there was a strong part of it from Raleigh, North Carolina.

Whereas, Katherine McPhee’s searcher audience does not reflect San Francisco, which might reflect that she’s not as popular.

I looked at Google Trends to see what I could find on American Idol for 2006, but I don’t think the Google Trends tool is granular enough yet and I covered this with four recent blog posts, Blogger Suggests Google Trends Pro Next  , Google Trends - Kick Ass!  and  Ashlee Simpson Gets a New Nose and Using Google Trends in a Deep Dive of Ashlee Simpson’s nose and the DaVinci Code.

I would expect, in the next year or two, will we see more tools with the power of HitWise, be free, or almost free.  Right now, I just don’t think the free tools are powerful enough to co-relate news stories and press releases to search spikes in demand.  I guess that means that HitWise will have to make their tools more exotic, to keep ahead.