Students Of Success

Out of the twelve German cities to play hosts to the FIFA 2006 World Cup Finals it is Berlin - Germany’s capital - that has arguably the most important role to play. It is in this city on Sunday 9th July that two teams will contest the final game of the tournament, and one of those teams will claim the ultimate prize in international football…the World Cup.

The stadium in which the Final will take place is Berlin’s Olympic Stadium - the very same venue that was used for the 1936 Olympic Games where Jessie Owen claimed four gold medals. In preparation for the FIFA 2006 World Cup finals the Olympic Stadium has undergone a complete renovation. Some 242 million euros were invested to bring the stadium into the 21st century. Work was completed in July 2004, and in September of that year Brazil met Germany for the inaugural international game.

Aside from the World Cup Final on 9th July, Berlin’s Olympic Stadium hosts a number of other World Cup matches. Brazil play Croatia here on 13th June, Sweden take on Paraguay in Group B on the 15th June, and Ecuador will attempt to defeat the hosts Germany at Berlin on the 20th. Ukraine face-off against Tunisia on the final day of group competition in the tournament too, while Berlin will be home to the first 2006 World Cup quarter-final on 30th June.

Berlin Sights

Berlin has so much to offer visitors this summer. There are world famous monuments, parks, restaurants, shops, museums and a zoo to take in. Two ‘must see’ attractions that should top everyone’s list are Brandenburg Gate and the TV Tower.

Brandenburg Gate

Arguably Berlin’s most famous monument, the Brandenburg Gate towers 20 metres high into the Berlin sky. It was built in 1791 and survived the conquest of Napoleon, but was badly damaged in the Second World War. For years it stood as a partition between East and West Germany as part of the Berlin Wall. Today, it is a symbol of a reunited Germany.

The TV Tower

Affectionately known as the ‘toothpick’ the TV Tower near Alexander Square is the second highest in Europe. It can be seen from almost anywhere in the city and offers spectacular views from the viewing tower and restaurant. On a clear day you can see up to 25 miles out into the German countryside. It’s well worth a visit!

Seb Jay is a freelance writer specializing in the origination of web content for http://www.your-carhire.com.

Google have launched another beta product called Google Trends. This enables people to check the popularity of keywords and the locations where they are most used. Being interested in the property market lets take a look at some of the major keywords that people will use to search the web.

Starting off with the keywords ‘property for rent’, ‘letting agents’, ‘houses for rent’, ‘flats for rent’ and ‘properties for rent’. The keywords were input into the Google trends search box, the report was ran off and it brought up a simple page with a graph showing the main trend for the keywords by search volume, however in this case there didn’t appear to be a scale on the y axis so the exact volume could not be known. However, looking at the graph it appears that the keyword search volume was fairly consistent over the period of 2005 and 2006 with the most popular keyword search for these 5 being letting agents.

The other section of the results show the top locations from where these searches were made in the UK. Looking at this data we could use an assumption that these are the property rental hotspots from the searches done on Google. With 76% of searches performed through google this could give us an idea of what the trends and patterns are for searches for rental property. In the example that Rentright performed the most searches for this keyword were performed by people in West Lothian, followed by Milton Keynes, Edinburgh and St Albans.

The great part of this tool is it is possible to do a comparison between 5 different keyword searches selecting different time periods, locations and areas. Another search that was performed was a comparison between houses for rent, houses to rent, flats for rent and flats to rent, the results showed that the most searches by volume was flats to rent with St Albans being the main area where this search was performed. The term houses to rent was searched on the most times by people in Bradford.

View the Full Report on Rentright

This tool provides an insight into what people are searching for in your chosen field and where these searches are most conduceted. This tool can be used as an excellent marketing resource to analyise markets and trends on the most popular search engine in the world.

All data provide in the reports are taken from the Google Trends Search Facility.

Chris Courtis is co-founder of the Rentright Residential Property Portal and is dedicated to the Rental Property Market.