"Our lives are to be used and thus to be lived as fully as possible, and truly it seems that we are never so alive as when we concern ourselves with other people."
—Harry Chapin

This morning, the Drudge Report noted that the swastika was the number-one item over on Google Trends . When I checked it out it was number three.

Click on through to the results pages and you see a lot of Chinese symbols. Among those results is this page from the Cantonese Learning and Discussion Forums that is a pretty interesting discussion of the swastika and a slight variation as they relate to Buddhism and Chinese culture.

What’s weird about this Google Trend, though, is that it’s for the symbol itself, not the word "swastika." I don’t know about your computer, but I don’t think my keyboard has that symbol anywhere.

JULY 10 UPDATE: Here’s a story from today’s L.A. Times about all this.

DMNews reports on Google’s "democratization of television advertising."

Takeaway for marketers: Veddy interesting.

That’s just one of the trends and realities of the Web in the Summer of 2008 that you’ll find expressed over here in a pithy nutshell of a page.

It’s always been something of an article of marketing faith that “free” is the most powerful word there is. As marketers struggle to connect with potential customers, that golden rule of copy is changing.

Here’s one small example:

Logging on to my AOL account this morning after the long holiday weekend, I have 763 emails, consisting mostly of newsletters to which I’ve subscribed and offers to which I’ve ostensibly opted in. (For years this AOL account has served as my main dumping ground anytime I’m asked for an email address for anything.)

The word “free” appears in the subject lines of 16 emails, promising me free 4th of July e-cards, a free prescription drug savings card, coupons and free samples and, of course, free shipping.

Meanwhile, the word “your” appears in 87 subject lines, professing concern for my earnings, my credit card debt, my home, my family, my car insurance, my identity, my teeth and my toilet bowl, among other things.

That “your” is being used more than five times as often as “free” to catch precious attention makes perfect sense. Cynicism rules, so most people understand that “free” usually isn’t, not by a longshot.

Ah, but “your” — that’s a word that’s personal, not corporate. It’s a word that implies connection and direct one-to-one communication. It’s a sign that the marketer is paying attention not just to the message, but to the mindset of the person receiving the message.

I suppose a special acknowledgment to Sears and Rachael Ray is necessary, since they managed to use the phrase “your free” in their subject lines (“your free Sears gift card” and “your free Rachael Ray cookware package”), thus scoring a rare daily double in my inbox.

Takeaway for marketers: Smart marketing communications means a lot more than arbitrarily slapping “your” into a subject line. Think about the full range of your communications and how you’re speaking to your customers and potential customers.