This month's the hip-hop magazine covers went as follows:

• Vibe: Outkast
• XXL: Jay-Z
• The Source: Ice Cube

Now part of choosing a mag cover is the tricky art of predicting future interest in your subject. Let's use Google Trends to see which of these artists are garnering more searches:
http://tinyurl.com/m6kwp

As you can see, Ice Cube has actually eclipsed Jay-Z in terms of searches on his name. This search data is actually a month ago, before these covers came out. Interesting, right?

Perhaps in an advertiser's media planning they can use Google Trends to predict which outlet's cover subject will generate the most heat.

--
Hashim
hiphop-blogs.com