Chapter 1 - PPC: Porn, Pills and Casinos

To say the least, this chapter was an interesting way to start the book! As we all know the quick and dirty summary of the chapter tracks the habits of Internet users through porn, gambling, and perscription websites (though he spends an awful lot of time on porn).

Interesting facts I didn't know or think about:

• Online adult sector revenue is cited as high as $97 billion annually
• Porn consumers are hard to survey because no one really wants to give away their deep, dirty secret
• 40,000 top porn sites accounted for 10% of all Internet visits in August 2007, down from 16% in August 2005. Could this be that people aren't wanting their usage of porn sites to be tracked? Or, is the author right that certain social networking sites are replacing porn sites because people are meeting each other in person? [see theory page 25].
• Friday, then Saturday are the busiest porn traffic days; Thanksgiving is the least trafficked day-the author surmises that this is because there are too many family members around to get alone time
• 72.6% porn users are male
• U.S industries charge $10-15 for one Viagra pill; the pill can be manufactured for less than $2 a pill
• Viagra, Alli and Lexapro are the most search for drugs online

Other revelations brought out in chapter one:

• On what the author does for a living..."looking at anonymized and aggregate user behaviors for millions of U.S. Internet users" [19]. I for one am hoping he explains how he does this!
• Low and behold he says on page 31 he works for Hitwise and has for the past four years. Must research Hitwise.