The PubSub Matchbox
"Making the Most of the Matching Engine"

The glitz and glamour of the Oscars were in rare form last night. Here at PubSub headquarters, we were busy counting up the mentions of the nominees over the past 3 weeks in the millions of weblogs, news resources, and press releases (I’ll call them the big three) that we monitor. While the numbers of posts to these media is not a good indicator of how a selective few will choose the “best” in either category, we thought that the numbers were intriguing. The Oscar winners are displayed in red and the highest mentions in blue (if they weren’t the winner).

Motion Picture

The Aviator: 1163
Finding Neverland: 575
Million Dollar Baby: 1437
Ray: 741
Sideways: 1077

Director

Martin Scorsese: 399
Clint Eastwood: 811
Taylor Hackford: 101
Alexander Payne: 127
Mike Leigh: 139

Actor - Leading Role

Don Cheadle: 271
Johnny Depp: 673
Leonardo DiCaprio: 382
Clint Eastwood: 811
Jamie Foxx: 665

Actor - Supporting Role

Alan Alda: 148
Thomas Haden Church: 149
Jamie Foxx: 665
Morgan Freeman: 388
Clive Owen: 257

Actress - Leading Role

Annette Bening: 117
Catalina Sandino Moreno: 100
Imelda Staunton: 167
Kate Winslet: 325
Hilary Swank: 412

Actress - Supporting Role

Cate Blanchett: 261
Laura Linney: 121
Virginia Madsen: 187
Sophie Okonedo: 97
Natalie Portman: 416

3 out of the 6 winners led in mentions in “The Big Three” over the past 3 weeks. Again, this is by no means a scientific endeavor, just a bit of fun unscientific collective intelligence testing.

An aside: Jamie Foxx probably had more mentions in best supporting actor category because we didn’t distinguish it from his portrayal as Ray, in which he won the Oscar for best actor (doing so would have skewed the results). That said, even though Foxx received that award, he didn’t beat out Clint Eastwood and Johnny Depp in mentions in “The Big Three” for that category. Go figure.