Google just launched Google Trends which can give you a insight into the trends of how popular a specific keyword or keyphrase has been over time.

It lacks specific numbers, but the graphs tells some interesting stories anyway.

Here are a few examples of trends:

• Bird flu
• Cartoons
• Netscape
• Web 2.0

A really neat feature is that you can use Google trends to do comparisons such as:

• Bush vs. Kerry
• Netscape vs. Firefox vs Internet Explorer

I also tried searching for “flowerdelivery” to see if it would spike at specific times each year - Mother’s Day for instance, but all I got back was a “403 Forbidden”.

We’re sorry…

… but your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application. To protect our users, we can’t process your request right now.

I then tried “flower delivery” and got back two very distinct spikes plus two minor, but still very visible spikes

Well, MyPickList got blogged by Stowe Boyd, and now they’ve been blogged again.

Originally I found out about MyPickList through Michael Arrington’s post

MyPickList is a new service in beta (or going into beta).

Essentially it’s a list of product recommendations - some of which you will earn a commission on if somebody purchase the product by means of your picklist.

I haven’t been invited to this beta yet, so my comments here are purely based on the very limited information found on the MyPickList site.

My initial thought was that this sounded like a cool way for bloggers to earn some revenue through their blogs through product recommendations.

Lots of blogs are currently monetized by Google AdSense.

Not because it necessarily is a very profitable way to monetize your content, but it’s simple, convenient and very low maintenance. Once you have your Google AdSense code integrated in your blog template, then you’re all set.

And I view MyPickList as a similar simple, convenient and low maintenance way of monetizing your blog.

Revenue in Google AdSense came from Google AdWords advertizers - revenue in MyPickList comes from various product merchants.

You could of course sign up for the affiliate programs (usually) offered by these product merchants, but it’s cumbersome and it could take ages before you reach the minimum payout threshold for each merchant.

Another downside is of course increased maintenance on your parts.

The clearest benefit to this would be increased commission percentages - as opposed to what can be earned through MyPickList.

MyPickList mentions the creation of Buddy Lists, where you can email your picklist to friends and family, and keep them updated whenever you add a new product recommendation.

Like I said, I haven’t been able to test MyPickList yet, but I do hope that they’ll implement this Buddy List functionality through double opt-in.

The reason this crossed my mind was because I never received a confirmation email when I signed up to be on the Beta notification email list. I was just subscribed, which means that anybody could sign up anybody for the Beta list without their consent.

So if this Budy List system is also implemented without double opt-in, then I forsee a very quick spam-death to MyPickList.

Gready and spam-happy individuals would flood their Buddy List with truckload of harvested emails.

Sure, MyPickList would just withhold their commission, but before they could do so all outgoing email would already have been blocked by the major blacklist services.

So I sincerely hope that the Buddy List feature is double opt-in.

This is definitely a service I would love to Beta test.