Chocolate, Antiques and Collectibles Buying and Selling Trends

Mouse likes maths. Lately he has been studying the trends on the web of his favorite things, antiques, collectibles and chocolate. He has been investigating Google Labs and Google Trends. This lets you know the volume of traffic in Google searches (right hand axis) per year (bottom axis). It is normalised which will allow for the increase in human and mouse users with time. It is not perfect but an interesting guide. He looked over the period from 2004 to the start of 2008.



He was very happy to note that chocolate had not shown any decline, ‘whilst there’s chocolate there’s life’ is one of his favorite sayings. Collectibles has declined a bit but not as much as antiques in general. Is this because fewer people are clicking, or, newer users are not so interested in antiques? Mouse is smart, he thinks a bit of both. A number of his investigations have suggested a roughly 50% decline in activity in a number of traditional areas, even digital photography, his favorite hobby, has fallen. The antiques field is a little worse.
Mouse cannot decide whether he likes a collectible or an antique for Christmas. He notes that fellow mice tend to prefer collectibles for Christmas and antiques in the New Year, chocolate is good anytime. With a thoughtful look he indicates, ‘that too much blogging makes you hungry’, not enough chocolate he murmurs, he’s off now, bye.

Introducing The Antique Mouse

I have been told that blogging is the latest craze. It is trendy, and the Antique Mouse always likes to keep up to date - so he told me he wanted to share his thoughts with you.
Me and the Mouse like to talk with our friends about the latest gizmos that we have tried out, the latest designs and art and lifestyle and in particular what's hot out there.
There are so many questions unanswered - so will normal DVD's work on Blu-Ray DVD machines, where has all the good antique glass gone, and most importantly where has all the good cheese gone?
I have been acquainted with the Antique Mouse for a number of years now. He likes the fine things in life. He is not averse to a glass of port with his cheese. He is very knowledgeable, for a mouse, and knows what he likes.
Today we have been discussing whether Collectibles are 'ibles' or 'ables'. We have agreed it's 'ibles' because it reminds Mouse of nibbles.
I hope that this is not the first and last blog that we are going to do, and that someone out there is going to be interested or get interested.