Since 2003, the Call of Duty video game series has been providing PC, PlayStation and XBox users with some of the most popular first-person shooters on any platform.

Never before, however, has a release left this kind of mark.

On November 10th, Activision released Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, the sixth installment in the much-heralded series. Not only has the new release received much critical acclaim (scoring 94% on Metacritic on both consoles), it’s also broken many of Grand Theft Auto IV’s sales records — including fastest-selling game of all-time.

Not at all surprisingly, then, the keywords “Call of Duty” are doing pretty well on eBay…

The above is a 30-day total sales trend for anything that pertains to “Call of Duty” — and that spike you see represents the day after Modern Warfare 2’s release. In the seven days following release, in fact, those keywords totalled more than $1.5 million in sales across the six eBay sites Terapeak covers, with close to 20,000 listings.

Stepping away from the actual game’s sales, it’s interesting to see where eBay sellers are capitalizing on the release’s success. Other items that have sold include action figures, keychains, and — no joke — night vision goggles.

Sales will undoubtedly continue on as the holidays approach, so if you’ve got any ideas yourself of how to take advantage, use them!

When we talk of “holiday selling opportunities”, you may not think of Thanksgiving first, second, or even at all. But as we constantly stress, virtually any major or minor calendar event will create some kind of market… and Thanksgiving season is no different.

Just because eBayers aren’t bidding on turkeys and spaghetti squash doesn’t mean there aren’t Thanksgiving-themed products to sell. A quick Terapeak category search for “Thanksgiving” turns up several relevant results, including the following (365-day Total Sales trends shown below each):

#912: Collectibles > Holiday & Seasonal > Thanksgiving > Current (1991-Now)

• Example products: Festive toys, decorations, knick-knacks

#29478: Collectibles > Postcards > Holidays > Thanksgiving

• Example products: Collectible postcards, vintage artwork

#34010: Crafts > Scrapbooking & Paper Crafts > Embellishments > Stickers > Holidays & Occasions

• Example products: Stickers, gift tags, scrapbook materials

As you can see by the one-year trends pictured, each of these three categories gets quite hot in November, selling multiple thousands of dollars worth of goods every day. And by searching any category using Terapeak, you can click the “Top Titles” tab to get a clearer idea of what types of items these categories entail.

With still 10 days before turkey time, there’s likely to be further growth in all of the above categories, plus many others on eBay. So keep an eye out, and never forget: the holidays on eBay should not be taken lightly!

Some more exciting news out of Terapeak-land this week!

On Monday, we launched Terapeak Keywords, a free application available exclusively on the eBay Selling Manager platform. It works much like a simplified version of our Title Builder tool, which Terapeak subscribers should already be familiar with. We’re hoping it’s a way for new sellers and Terapeak beginners to get a feel for eBay research, before committing to the full-scale product.

Each free Terapeak Keywords search gives you:

• 20 suggested keywords, related to your search
• Average, maximum and minimum prices for each suggested keyword
• A self-refreshing suggestions list as you select additional keywords
• The ability to build your title until you’ve exhausted all 55 characters
• All data based on 100 recently-closed eBay listings

… because as all experienced eBay sellers (and Terapeak users!) should know, the first step to creating a great listing is coming up with a great title. And that means making all 55 characters count.

To add Terapeak Keywords to your Selling Manager Applications, visit the Selling applications directory. Remember, you must also be a Selling Manager or Selling Manager Pro user.

In 1963, Maurice Sendak published a little book called Where the Wild Things Are, about the wild adventures of a boy named Max who is sent to bed without dinner. Max dons a wolf costume and becomes leader of some weird creatures, and the entire story is told with just ten brief sentences.

Many of us still treasure it.

Tonight, as you may know, marks the book’s long-awaited film release. Adapted by a pair of Terapeak faves, director Spike Jonze and author Dave Eggers, the film may well have been geared toward adults as much as (or more than) children… Though of course we’re not complaining. And neither, according to this 30-day total sales trend, are eBay buyers:

Perusing some of the closed listings, many are original copies of Sendak’s book, with first editions routinely fetching several hundred dollars (a hard cover sold for $1,175 USD!). But Wild Things is also one of those gold mines for merchandisers; we’ll bet everything we’ve got that Max and monster costumes will be popular this Halloween, as will Wild Things toys and stuffed animals come holiday time.

We’re also pretty pumped for Eggers’ novel adaptation — released last week in both hardcover and fur-covered formats!

As for the movie itself, we’re not quite sure what to expect. We like that the monsters are in costumes, and not CGI. We like that Karen O. from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs is doing the music. We like the idea of watching something new and feeling young again… And we like that the wait for this thing is finally, finally over.

Oof! Look what time of year it is again!

Yes, yes, tis officially the season to be thinking about the December holidays — but check out that 90-day total listings trend for “Halloween.” It’s a season unto itself, where clearly there is money to be made. Last year it seemed everyone and their cat dressed as the Joker from The Dark Knight… so what does this year have in store?

Based on the recent success of True Blood and Twilight, we’re gonna go out on a limb (yeah right) and suggest vampires might be one common theme this year… But who else? Michael Jackson? Kanye West? John and Kate Gosselin? Whoever it is, they’ll be a big part of these ridiculous two-year total sales trends for “Costumes & Reenactment Attire > Costumes” and “Holiday & Seasonal > Halloween”:

This TP-blogger, meanwhile, is set to go as Michael J. Fox’s Teen Wolf — so if anyone knows where to acquire mass amounts of body hair…

It was only a few weeks ago that football came back into our lives, and already, for sports fans, the season is getting even sweeter…

Tonight, the puck drops on the 2009-10 NHL season!

As many of you know, Terapeak is a Canadian company, so it’s no surprise that many of us in the office are pretty pumped for the season ahead. Our local boys, the Canucks, look primed for a big year, and a long, eventful offseason have made us eager for the games to begin.

This season also marks the second for Terapeak’s NHL on eBay index, which tracks the total sales, total listings and average price of all 30 NHL squads, and allows users to view by division and conference. It also comes with this companion widget, which you can easily embed into your website or blog:

As for who’s looking primed for a breakout eBay selling season, the defending champion Penguins are high atop the league’s total sales rankings, while Cup runners-up Detroit sit in first place in the West. The remaining five “Original 6″ teams, plus Washington, make up the next-best-selling squads.

We’ll be sure to check in with updates as the season progresses, but for now, good luck to you and your team!

As if that other vampire-riffic phenomenon couldn’t get any bigger, we were peeping the Terapeak Hot DVDs section this morning and noticed a TV series atop the list…

For those keeping score, your crazy-colored vampire eyes don’t deceive you: that’s HBO’s True Blood laying a whuppin’ on the former undead champs.

But unlike Twilight, which has more than its share of detractors, we’ve heard almost exclusively good things about the HBO series. Now in its second season, the show stars Oscar-winning actress Anna Paquin as Sookie Stackhouse, a telepathic waitress, and chronicles the mystifying events of a small town in Louisiana.

Below is a 90-day total sales trend for “True Blood,” produced by Terapeak’s All Sites package:

We’re not actually sure what’s produced such a spike — the DVDs were released several months ago, and the show’s second season only just began — but then we also haven’t had a chance to really bite into the television series… (hah!)

Maybe if there weren’t so many freakin’ Twilight books to finish?

In case you haven’t heard, there’s this wild new video game out, where you and a few friends get to be English kids with bad haircuts, who sing cute little pop songs that eventually become more complex, and eventually you pioneer this thing called rock and roll and take over the world… It’s pretty “out there”, but a lot of fun!

Okay, obviously we’re talking about The Beatles: Rock Band, which released just over a week ago, and which features some crazy specialized instrument add-ons, like Paul’s signature Hofner bass and Ringo’s branded drum kit. Not coincidentally, the game also launched in conjuction with remastered reissues of the band’s catalogue — which, here in the office, we’re pretty stoked on.  Of course, $250 retail (the cost of the 13-part box set) is a lot of dough to spend on tunes you’ve pretty much heard before — especially when paired with all the Rock Band packages — so for any fan to get in on the action, they’re looking at a hefty financial commitment.

As a result — and you know what we’re gonna say — eBay sales have gone through the roof.

Check out this 30-day All Sites total sales trend:

… and that’s just any listing with the keyword “Beatles” in it!

If total amounts aren’t your thing (fair, considering the new release factor), consider this: in the two weeks leading up to release date, sell-through also shot from 38% to 51%,  while bids per listing nearly doubled. And if holiday patterns are any indication… well, that’s only the beginning.

Terapeak’s Hot Media charts for September won’t come out for another couple weeks, but do you remember the following from a couple months back?

… Okay, we still can’t get over how unbelievable that is. Jaw-dropping. Inconceivable.

But don’t be surprised to see some kind of Beatles “lite” version as holiday sales pick up…

If there’s one upside to summer ending (it feels dirty even saying that), it’s what kicks off tonight: a new NFL season!

In what’s become a tradition over the past several years, the defending champion Steelers will host the Tennessee Titans in a special Thursday game — and there’s little love lost between these two teams. Last year, Tennessee had the NFL’s best regular season record, and during a December win over Pittsburgh they let their distaste for Steel-town be known. Of course, that turned out to be Pittsburgh’s final loss, as they crushed Tennessee in January en route to their sixth Super Bowl win.

But how do the teams stack up on eBay? Well, that’s where the Terapeak NFL Index comes in:

Now, pitting almost any team against Pittsburgh is unfair — they’re one of the most decorated franchises in pro sports, and have long been among the NFL’s top merchandise-sellers. So it should come as no surprise that only the Dallas Cowboys have made more eBay revenue  over the past 30 days, or that Pittsburgh has sold more than twice as many items (17,717) as the next-best-selling AFC team (Miami, with 7,665).

But give the Titans some credit: their average price on eBay ($91.76) is higher than all other 31 NFL teams. (Though only the lowly Bengals have sold fewer items amongst AFC teams.)

Following Dallas and Pittsburgh to round out the Total Sales top 10: Chicago, Minnesota, Green Bay, NY Giants, Philadelphia, Washington, Baltimore and Cleveland… Not a lot of south on that list, hey?

Just like last year, we’ll be blogging about the index as the season marches on, but save the link for yourself if you’re selling anything sports-related. Also of interest: the Terapeak NHL index… hockey’s just around the corner, too!

Like Miley before her, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is getting in on the eBay action.

Until September 18th, dinner with the once-VP-candidate is up for grabs via auction, with bidding set to begin at a generous $25,000. As of this blog post, the auction has only been up for a few hours, and so no bids have been submitted (or if they have, they haven’t passed Palin’s screening process), but we hope interest soars: all proceeds benefit Ride 2 Recovery, a charity aimed at helping wounded soldiers.

Now this is obviously a swell gesture on Palin’s part, but we can’t help but wonder: What about the Terapeak Election index? If this auction takes off, can you even imagine what it’ll do to Palin’s “Average Price” metric? Poor Joe Biden’s had enough trouble competing with eBay wunderkind Obama… Next thing you know, John McCain will be selling his old baseball cards!

But seriously, like we said, we wish Palin all the best. Just as we let Miley off the hook when she didn’t respond to our Tweet, we’re willing to forget Palin’s apparent nearsightnedness…

And in 30 days, the Terapeak Election index will rise again!

(Though, yes, its current relevance remains to be seen.)