I’m in an awards mood today, and it’s almost time to reflect on 2008 as we head barreling into 2009. The New York Times blogged about a company’s quest (great PR move by Sawhorse Media)  to find the best tweeters of the year. The awards are called the Shorty Awards, and it’s a hot topic on Twitter. Over 12,000 entries have come in already.

I thought it was for top tweets, but it’s really for the top people on Twitter in different categories. This means it serves as a great way to see who’s popular on different subjects (just in case you need to reach or follow one of them).

Want to know what we as a group think about, worry about, and are curious about? Ask.com gives insight by naming the top searches of the year. 2008 was a year of worries about gas prices and the economy. We sought out deals on vacations, used cars, and cheap apartments.

Ask.com, the 7th largest search engine in the US gets 70 million unique monthly searches, according to comScore Media Metrix (Oct. 2008). Last year we had different things on our minds, and the categories of queries has changed. Still, the #1 search last year for politicians during the primaries is now president elect Barack Obama.

The famous celebrity moms who captured our attention was a pregnant Angelina Jolie, Jessica Alba, a young and pregnant Jamie Lynn Spears, and a perky politician most of us hadn’t heard of until this year: Sarah Palin.

Vocus, the company that owns PRWeb sponsored a study by the Society for New Communications Research. They talked to over 420 marketing and PR professionals about the different ways they view press releases.

It reminds me of the evolution from getting search results and rankings in Google, to a focus on web site traffic and conversion. From what I’ve seen PR professionals are gradually changing perspective. It’s a tough transition because their clients seem to value seeing their name in print over the incremental benefits of traffic and sales.

The difference in perspective between PR and marketing:

PR Professionals

• Want to get their clients on the news and value exposure in traditional media.
• The value is in making the client look good in the right circles.

The fun of shopping online has worn off. Online megamall iStorez studied how people feel about shopping online. Only 1 in 10 Americans now shop just ‘for the fun of it,’ and the majority want improvements.

Here are some more findings:

• 78% of younger shoppers say they think online shopping has room for improvement.
• 55% find online shopping more convenient than shopping in stores
• 36% find greater financial rewards (look online to get bargains)
• 35% find more variety offline (even though there is much more variety online)
• The woman who has the most admired fashion sense in politics right now is former vice president candidate Sarah Palin. That came at a price though – she famously $150,000 on her wardrobe.