Screw the race for President. It's Oscar time. In case you're getting fatigued with trying to keep up with all th predictions and numbers rolling in from primary elections and other conjectures for who will win the presidency, head on over to Spock and see who's going to win an Oscar this year.
In a manner similar to some of the outcomes we saw to gauge the next winner of the White House, Spock is determining likely Oscar winners based on the amount of search activity for each candidate. We saw with Nielsen's metrics, which looked at blog discussions in order to gauge popularity of various candidates, that this is an experimental tactic in determining the outcome of a particular event based on various types of web activity.
What's interesting, however, is how this information can be weeded out. Does search popularity really mean success at the awards ceremony or the polling booth? It often does, though this isn't an exact science! Here are some of the top results according to people search engine Spock, in comparison to the professional projections:
PEOPLE'S CHOICE
Best Actor: Johnny Depp
Best Supporting Actor: Tom Wilkinson
Best Actress: Ellen Page
Best Supporting Actress: Ruby Dee
Best Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
ROGER EBERT'S CHOICE
Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis
Best Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem
Best Actress: Ellen Page
Best Supporting Actress: Ruby Dee
Best Director: Joel and Ethan Coen
PETER TRAVERS' CHOICE
Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis
Best Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem
Best Actress: Julie Christie
Best Supporting Actress: Ruby Dee
KENT JONES' CHOICE
Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis
Best Supporting Actor: Hal Holbrook
Best Actress: Julie Christie
Best Supporting Actress: Cate Blanchett