Sarah Palin not "buzzing" in Internet search trends

Ok, it's 4:12 PST and the long awaited interview between Sarah Palin and Oprah is on - and I'm missing it. I'm working online but had to click over and check Google Trends, expecting to find "sarah palin" among the top 10 search trends, but not. It's not there, and there's no derivative keyword term in the top 20 or 30 results.

Gov. Sarah Palin

It's not until number 39 that we see "oprah sarah palin interview" as a trend, and even then it's not a search trend that's "On Fire" or "Volcanic". Nah. It's just "Spicy". Moreover, its near the bottom of the list of 40 results, which means that since "sarah palin" hasn't been hot all day long, this term's going to drop from the list soon.

Why is it not a really hot search? Well, I think we're seeing a saturation of news and views on Sarah Palin. And while she's a top Yahoo Buzz search trend, that's for a longer period than just today and reflects the still respectable but not incredible level of interest in her. But Yahoo only controls at best 20 percent of the search market,

But there's interest in the interview. Oprah's instincts were correct. America's love of public displays of conflict and controversy created the desire to see Oprah and Sarah Palin together. It's no wonder Oprah, but not "Sarah Palin" or even "palin" is a top trend on Twitter. It's the interview more than Palin herself.

From a trend standpoint, this buzz surrounding her book Going Rogue will last for another month, then poof, gone. Without Sarah as Governor of Alaska there's nothing else to hang on to except the occasional blasts courtesy of newly minted porn start Levi Johnston.

A good source of evidence to support my claim is called "Google Insights for Search" (GIS) which is excelent at revealing long term keyword search trends. At GIS, a strongly searched or term is over 50. Sarah Palin didn't top that until last Thursday November 12th, peaked on Friday at almost 100 and then fell to just over 70 on Sunday.

If one drills down more, the two top terms containing "Sarah Palin" or "Palin" are some combination of sarah palin and oprah. In other words, again, it's not Sarah Palin herself, but the interview with Oprah fueling search trends.

All of this should give Sarah Palin supporters cause to question her real level of popularity as well as if it can translate into a Presidential run. I don't think she's as popular as some contend and I hold that her overall buzz-factor is weak on its own.

The best future course for Sarah Palin is as a talk show host but her future as a politician is just not there. A future Rush Limbaugh? For some reason I don't see that formula working in her favor. She has the capacity to build her own audience with its own unique flavor. It's just not going to translate into votes for the White House.