Halo 3. Wondering what Halo 3 is all about so I took a look at Wikipedia which said it's "G4 an American cable and satellite television channel originally geared toward male viewers aged 12–34, devoted to the world of video games and the video game lifestyle". 

Right now, the top searches on Halo 3 are "halo 3 skulls", "halo 3 armor", "halo 3 levels" and "halo 3 cheats".  Yet it's also important people want to learn more about halo 3 glitches and halo 3 walkthroughs.  Meanwhile "halo 3 unlockables" and "halo 3 ranks" or "halo 3 sales".

Funny, I never knew about it till I noticed Halo 3 appearing in more and more places, somehow tied to g4 tv (the American Cable and Satellite channel), g4 (which is more of a Mac Processor but which people think is related to g4tv or Halo 3 (which I just previewed online ….. remember John 117, at least, that's what the online video mentioned as the main hero). 

Look, if the Wall Street Journal can write about Casual Gamer Takes a Turn At Halo 3 to Judge the Hype that …

"…Microsoft wants an event beginning midnight Tuesday to obliterate those unhappy memories: the launch of Halo 3. The games industry isn't shy about hyping its products, but in the case of Halo 3 — the third installment in an outer space franchise that has previously sold 14.8 million copies — the buildup has been particularly deafening, with Microsoft billing the launch as an entertainment event that transcends games."

I guess, this game of Halo 3, according to Wikipedia, (Halo 3 is a first-person shooter developed by Bungie Studios exclusively for the Xbox 360. The game ends the story arc, begun in Halo: Combat Evolved and continued with Halo 2.^[5] The final version of the game was released on September 25, 2007^[1] in New Zealand (where its midnight release made it first available for retail), Australia, Singapore, India, Mexico, Canada, Brazil and the United States; September 26, 2007 in Europe; and September 27, 2007 in Japan. GameSpot reported that 4.2M units of Halo 3 were in retail outlets on September 24, 2007, a day before official release^[6], a world record volume release) is what Microsoft is hoping will "obliterate it's unhappy memories", replace t
hem with "happy memories" and make a big profit.   But will it? 

It's hard to see a robotized warrior with a machine gun shooting at who knows what, as being a hero, but that's just me.

However, the halo 3 countdown has begun (or started well before today, as I'll show, below) because Walmart got in the act early - as in walmart halo 3 where big lines expected tonight for 'Halo 3' game release  :

"…At 2,500 Wal-Mart Supercenters — including the new Lafayette location — officials are hoping to “help gamers get the game as fast as they can” by designating specific check-out lines at midnight for "Halo" sales only, said Wal-Mart spokeswoman Jami Arms."

But why do I care?  Even Best Buy got in the act with best buy halo 3 in New York City (NYC Halo 3 Launch: A Best Buy Transformed ), but it was not clear, to some, which store was hosting the Halo 3 event:

"..At first I wasn't sure I would be able to find the Best Buy that was holding the Halo 3 launch event in New York. After all, it is very big city, and I am a southern boy at heart".

I noticed a lot of searches on "halo armor" which looks to be created, or enhanced by special 3D Software, according to Newsday.com:

"..During the three-year project, 200 members of Halo 3's production staff employed an array of software, including highly specialized programs such as 3ds Max, Maya and Havok, to re-create Master Chief and the world in which he battles the evil Covenant.

"[The advances] are rendered using a new graphics engine, making the most of next-generation features like high dynamic range and pre-computed radiance transfer," said Frank O'Connor, Bungie's lead writer."

OK, so we have several terms that people are searching for that are all tied to Halo 3 or G4TV … but which one's would you want to search on to get the most information?  Would it be "best buy halo 3" or "halo 3 launch" or "halo 3 release" and "walmart halo 3"?  What about "g4.com" or "halo armor"?  While the "halo 3 countdown" is almost over (today, in fact) there's probably a lot more information at g4tv.com/halo (which is the same thing as g4tv and g4 tv) and I have to wonder how I could so totally miss the Halo 3 phenomenon.  BTW, what does nightmare armor have to do with it?

Here's what I found to be the most popular terms based on Blogosphere Buzz:

Comparing g4tv.com/halo to g4tv to g4 tv shows "g4tv" to be the most popular term but if you really want the largest sampling, try searching on "halo 3".  BTW, I know some writers at Know More Media have also written about Halo 3 - such as Wii Sold Out in the US from http://www.risingsunofnihon.com and Consumer Engagement: What Does It Mean?  (which is my own post from earlier last year on Consumer Engagment or  customer engagement) and Wii Sold Out in the US by http://www.risingsunofnihon.com.

So, why do I care about Halo 3?  Well, it's kinda like a 3D Virtual World and I see that audience of "…video game players aged 12–34, devoted to the world of video games and the video game lifestyle" as important to track and develop metrics for the games they're playing.

I know that Google bought AdScape earlier this year, and I wrote about it in Google AdScape - Google buys AdScape for 24 Million.  What I see happening is Google serving In Game Advertising and then reporting it up, eventually, to us via Google Analytics.  In many ways, Halo 3 is a game that could be studied from the standpoint of Social Media (even the way the jump page online is designed to collect geo-demographic information) to the Web Analytics data one can, eventually, pull from it.

And that's why I care about Halo 3.