Marley McAliley, Google Search Trends Expert

In the month of July, the top searches on Google included the Barbie movie, beach reads, extreme heat, the Women's World Cup, speed dating, and barbecue recipes. People were interested in learning about the Barbie movie, finding summer reading recommendations, staying hydrated in extreme heat, following the Women's World Cup, trying speed dating, and experimenting with new recipes for the grill. Well, it seems like more and more the things that we'd like to know about, we're going to Google for. And we took a look back at the end of each month just to kind of take a look at what were the trends were. It's a revealing and oftentimes a rather surprising look at the people, places, and topics that sent us scrambling to do online searches for, for more information. And let's review the month of July with my special guest who's joining me here at the program, Google Search Trends Expert. We have Marlee McAleely who is with us here this morning at RNJ. Marlee, good morning. Welcome back. Good to have you back with us today. Good morning. I'm so happy to be back with you. Well, here we go. Let's, let's take a look at the month of July and see how many things I literally forgot about because the news cycles just change so quickly. But we'll start off in the category of entertainment. And this I thought would have been a really easy one with all the hype around the Barbie movie or the Oppenheimer movie. But then I remembered we've had this, this prolonged strike with the writers and now the actors have jumped on board. So, I'm kind of torn as to what would be the top entertainment story. But I think Barbie is just so big right now. Barbie has to be number one. You're absolutely correct. Go me. That's what you've got there. Yes, Barbie is kicking the country by storm. People across the nation are searching so much for Barbie. Different questions about the movie, about the all-star cast, about the soundtrack. There's just been a lot of interest in this new film. As you've also probably seen, there was, you know, movie theaters that are being sold out all through the week, so lots of people excited about Barbie. It's unbelievable. And this Barbie challenge that people are doing, that scene where she steps out of the little doll shoes and people are trying that at home and doing it on TikTok. It's unbelievable how big this has gotten. But all right, look at me. I'm one for one. All right. In the next category for culture, I'm going to say that riding the wave of Barbie, maybe people are searching for all things pink. You know, pink paints, pink clothing, anything that's pink. Am I near the top there with culture searches, Marlee? You're kind of close. I mean, there's definitely a lot of interest in the Barbie core pink over the past month, but we're also seeing a lot of interest in beach reads and summer reading. You know, a lot of people are going out to the beach, and they're looking up what the best beach reads are this year. So, we're seeing a lot of breakout searches when it comes to romance novels or mystery literature as people are looking for different recommendations and how to, you know, keep busy and find some ways to read over the summer. How about books about Barbie? They got to be in there then, too. Yes. Yes. People are definitely interested in learning more about Barbie as well. You're right. They could be. Right. All right. Our next category for July, science and technology, I think it's got to be, and I always go with my old standby. I usually go for something related to either Twitter or Elon Musk, but with him blowing up the Twitter brand, he got rid of Larry Bird, the little Twitter bird, and just replaced it now with the letter X. It's got to be these changes, these seismic changes for Twitter for the top science and technology trends for July. Am I right on that one? So, that was a good guess, but for this section of science, we're actually seeing a lot more about like natural sciences and hydration and extreme heat this month. There's a huge heat wave across the country, and scientists actually say that the first two weeks of July were the hottest on human record. So, lots of people, you know, are soaking up the heat over the summer and wondering how to stay hydrated while doing it. Oh, that's true. People are learning how to protect themselves from extreme heat. Yeah, that's true. I think places like Phoenix, Arizona with a full month where it's been over 110 degrees every day, maybe that's what people are looking for. But we just wrapped up some hot weather here in New Jersey, Marley, where we were in the upper 90s for a couple of days. So, all right, well, I'm halfway through. I'm going to say I'm one for three so far. Marley McAlealy is my guest this morning, Google search trends expert. We're taking a look back at what were the top searches for the month of July from Jersey. So, you know, things we were looking for. From the world of sports, lots of things going on. I think what's really dominated the headlines, at least for me, because I'm excited about the Women's World Cup soccer tournament that's going on. We have a win. We have a draw. We'll play our next match tomorrow morning at 3 a.m., which I will be awake to watch, thank goodness, against the, they'll play Portugal. But is it the Women's World Cup, Marley, that's been driving the sports searches? Yes, you are correct. We're seeing lots of searches about the Women's World Cup. People are searching for some of their favorite World Cup athletes internationally, as well as some favorite U.S. soccer athletes, and then lots of people just looking for ways that they can stay tuned, keep up with what's happening at the World Cup and how best they can watch it as well. Yeah, all right. I'll be watching it tomorrow morning at 3 a.m. when we hopefully get a win over Portugal and punch our ticket to the next round at the soccer matches, which, by the way, Marley, I don't know if you've been watching. It's so weird to watch these matches in Australia and New Zealand where it's the dead of winter and it's cold and they've got these long shadows. It's just so bizarre to watch these tournaments. Have you been watching some of the games? Yes, I have been, and that is a very interesting point to think about, you know, the different conditions that people are having to play in this year. You know, whether it's hot or cold in the winter, it is very fascinating. Yeah, so interesting. All right, to the category of odd news, and I don't know if I would call this odd news, but it seems like we've got this lottery fever thing that's been kind of going around. We just had a Powerball jackpot drawing of a billion dollars, mega millions tonight. That's over a billion dollars as well. Does lottery and the multi-state lottery, Marley, does that fall in the odd news category or is there something else that we were dominating our searches with? It's actually something else, and the odd news section was fun because it's so hard to predict, but this month it was actually speed dating. People were searching for speed dating, which was a breakout search over the past month. Some people were specifically looking for speed dating for seniors and speed dating for different categories or groups. That was a top search, and people were also looking up singles through this, so it seems like a lot of people, you know, are looking at ways to get back out there or find some summer love. Interesting, and speed dating is nothing new. Maybe the senior speed dating is something new. Maybe it doesn't move quite as fast as maybe it's kind of speed dating when it's older people, maybe. And the last one that we've got, for recipes, for the top recipes, listen, it's July. It's the United States. We're in a barbecue season. It's got to be something barbecue related, I would think, for recipes. So, Marley, am I close on that one? Yes, you're very close. So, when it comes to how to cook searches across the U.S., people are really looking at, you know, different ways that they could cook up some of their favorite foods on the grills, whether that's crab legs or even zucchini. We're seeing some interesting searches on how people, you know, can get a little adventurous and maybe throw in some new items on the summer barbecue this year. All right. Not so bad. If I get half of them, I consider that a successful month of remembering what the top searches were, Marley. So, thanks for walking through these with me again, and I guess we'll do it again when we get to August? Absolutely. All right. You did really good this month. Thank you. Thank you. I did my best, I think. I never cheat, by the way. I know sometimes I'll get the answers. I don't even want to look at them because I want to test my own memory. But Marley McAlealy, thank you again, and we'll talk again coming up when we get to August. And thank you again for the time this morning. Always a treat to speak with you. Thanks so much. Have a good one.