Oscar Nominations - Wordtracker Predictions

The movie and gossip columns today are awash with speculation on the Oscar nominations. Asking who will walk away with the prizes is great fun not only in the US but throughout the world. But is there anyway to really get an inside track? Wordtracker, a keyword research company thinks that search engine behaviour could be just such a predictor.

London, UK (PRWEB) February 24, 2007 -- The names that people type into search engines give an indication of their interest in a particular movie or movie star. And if members of the public show a high level of interest in a particular film or star, could it be that members of the academy are likely to show the same interest?

Wordtracker stores a database of over 300 million search terms that people have entered over the last 90 days, available at http://www.wordtracker.com. The company fed details of the Oscar nominations into their database and came up predictions for searches over the last 24 hours:

• Will Smith is streets ahead of everyone else in the nomination for leading actor, with almost 8,800 searches, twice as many as his nearest rival Leonardo DiCaprio.
• Eddie Murphy and Mark Wahlberg with 2,670 and 2,659 respectively are neck and neck in the race for Actor in a support role.
• The most popular in the nomination for actress in a leading role are Penelope Cruz with 10,359 and Kate Winslet at 9,077. However there is still a strong showing for Helen Mirren at 5,470.
• Adriana Barraza, nominated for actress in a support role is the lowest of all the nominees with just 65 searches estimated for the last 24 hours. The leading contender is this category has almost a hundred times as many searches at 6,439.
• And among the nominees for best picture, 'Little Miss Sunshine' takes the lead at 3,121 with 'Babel' in second place at 2,587.
Wordtracker Chief Technical Officer Mike Mindel said, "Our figures give a measure of the internet buzz around each nomination. That might well be something that the members of the academy react to, even subconsciously."
"So even if our top scorers don't lift the top prizes, at least they will know that they're top as far as internet searchers go."
The full Wordtracker predictions can be found at http://www.wordtracker.com/blog/

Wordtracker predictions:
Actor in a leading role

Will Smith 8751
Leonardo DiCaprio 4485
Ryan Gosling 1507
Forest Whitaker 425
Peter O'Toole 100

Actor in a support role

Eddie Murphy 2670
Mark Wahlberg 2659
Jackie Earle Haley 656
Alan Arkin 236
Djimon Hounsou 167

Actress in a leading role

Penelope Cruz 10359
Kate Winslet 9077
Helen Mirren 5470
Meryl Streep 1155
Judi Dench 573

Actress in a support role

Jennifer Hudson 6439
Cate Blanchett 1716
Rinko Kikuchi 973
Abigail Breslin 416
Adriana Barraza 65

Best picture

Little Miss Sunshine 3121
Babel 2587
The Departed 2052
Letters from Iwo Jima 1317
The Queen 1112