Search Trends - Search Engine Marketing

Has anybody else noticed that there are two huge trends competing for my attention these days. There is the healthy living trend, which is seen by all the fad diets, organic foods, health food stores, nutritional supplements, etc. Then there's the couch potato trend--the one that offers more and more conveniences so that I don't have to actually pick my lazy butt off the couch unless it's absolutely necessary. Lately, I feel like my inner couch potato is winning the battle.

Case in point: I just moved to a new house, so I signed a new contract with Dish Network. By getting a new contract, I was able to upgrade to the new dual receiver DVR. What's that? Well, it's the Tivo-like digital video recorder that allows you to record television shows, pause live TV, rewind and watch your favorite scenes in slow mo...all that good stuff. Anyway, I had one of the single TV DVRs before, and I absolutely loved it, but it was annoying when I wanted to pause or rewind something on my other TV because it only worked on the one television.

I was thinking about buying another one, but I've been holding out because I didn't want to have to shell out a ocuple hundred bucks. This new one lets me watch and record my shows while the kiddos are recording Barbie Swan Lake or whatever tickles their fancy. Plus it's technically one reciever, so I don't have to pay a second receiver fee each month. How sweet is that?

To top it off, since it's plugged into the phone line, this thing will show me who's calling right there on the TV, so I can decide if I need to even bother pausing the show to go pick up the phone. Now if I could just get one of these that would give me a footrub and make me a chocholate milkshake, I'd be set.

In case you're wondering, no, this doesn't really have anything to do with search marketing, although they do have a pretty cool search function built into this DVR that lets you search for shows by keyword. I think we'll continue to see more of this type of built in search funtionality in media products and services in the future.

Going back to my first thought about the two competing trends...I don't have any data to back this up, but I bet there are some pretty big players in the liesure and convenience market that also have businesses offering weight loss and health-related businesses. First they cause obesity by giving us the tools to become lazy slobs, then they give us the tools to get back in shape. It's all some wacked out conspiracy!