Harrison Barnes Hits #1 on Google Trends
by Gutty
Many different sources of real-time media all converged and turned the Internet spotlight onto recruiting on Friday when the term “Harrison Barnes” became a Twitter trending topic while simultaneously climbing to the #1 and #3 spot on Google trends…oh yeh, and Barnes announced his choice via Skype VOIP video chat. Let’s not even get started about all the rumors spawning from live UStream video blogging by Kyrie Irving, Nolan Smith, Larry Drew, Ed Davis, etc…
It’s surprising that a high school basketball recruitment could amount to such national hype, but considering that fans are hungry for basketball after a long offseason, it’s no surprise the Internet-fueled interest avalanched beyond affecting just the casual fans on the web and crept into higher publicity. Many people who don’t follow basketball were asking things on Twitter like “Who the heck is Harrison Barnes?”
After researching Tyler Hansbrough’s media hype, it seems to me that Barnes has a much higher ceiling than Hansbrough in terms of fame-building. Barnes has a one year head start on fame and he has the type of personality that accepts public relations as a part of the role. Heck, he probably even admits that he’s a role model already. There goes childhood, but here comes success. The kid can’t vote, but he handles himself like a politician. Today he made a wise choice in terms of gaining a mass audience.
Now I know for a fact that Roy doesn’t utilize Skype on the regular. The crapnet itself is not vetted enough for a man with as little time as Roy. But I’ll be damned if he didn’t look a little cutting edge using Skype in front of the whole world. Hey, he’s probably at home tonight listening to Pandora Radio, playing Guitar Hero, streaming the Duke game off justin.tv, all while torrenting old beach music and shagging on the living room table with Wanda. Why not – we are trending to #1…