Came up with a random idea. What about setting up Adwords ads on topical phrases? More specifically, phrases which will be searched for a lot over a very short period of time. Currently examples would include 'hans island', 'london terror arrests', 'grand theft auto lawsuit', and 'john bolton'.

The idea for advertisers isn't to sell or hawk products related to these topics, but related to the demographics and markets that are most likely to search for these items. The politically aware will be looking for John Bolton. News mongers and geeks will be looking for Hans Island (it was just covered on Slashdot as a Google related story).

Is there a way of getting rapid bursts of hot traffic from Adwords by using topical phrases? I'd love to hear if anyone has tried. I'll certainly be giving it a go when the next blogging / tech meme comes around.

(Thanks for all the podcast recommendations by the way, VERY useful.)