Chapter 6 - Summary and thoughts

This chapter contains the reason for this book. To quote Erin..."at the click of a button, we can find out what our society is thinking and what they are interested in and WHY!". Reference Page 102, second paragraph, sentence that starts with "We were talking specifically about..."

This chapter basically outlines some of the nations fears and social anxieties, based on search results. I feel at this point as though the author is turning the book into a psych book. He introduces a lot of his own theories and thought, which I guess is good, but are they all substantiated?

I found it interesting that the author points out that there has been an increase in "how to" queries - which gives him data on what we all want to learn about. Although the results are scary when he lists things like "How to make meth", "How to make a bomb" being close to the top (Page 114)!

In this chapter, the author briefly explores what other countries are searching for. The differences he highlights are vernacular, and probably not relevant to the overall theme/message of the book.

The author points out seasonal patterns again, stating that majority of the "why" searches are performed during the school year. He begins to ramble in this chapter and continues to point out random thoughts, not tying the overall theme of the book together.

Chapter 5: Celebrity Worship Syndrome

Before I even started reading this chapter, I smiled: two of my most favorite time killing sites to visit are www.tmz.com and www.thesuperficial.com. Which are two total celebrity worship sites. There is now even a tmz television show! I think it is the "Calgon take me a way syndrome....also known as aspiring to be famous." Or otherwise just highly entertaining.

Does anyone really want to see a Paris Hilton sex tape? Really. Just needed to say that. Anyway, three stages of CWS as I refer to it are : entertainment/social stage, intense personal stage, and borderline pathologial stage..where CWS becomes an obsession.

[Note: this author likes to talk about Playboy, porn and sex tapes way too much, he might be in the pathological stage].

Is Anna Nicole Smith's death really the 5th most important topic that it should be the 5th most popular U.S. search item? I think not.

Interesting quote: "Some celebrities garner more attention if society has found a way to identify with them" [92]. Enter Chris Brown and Rihanna.

Celebrity sites that have the most male viewers: eogtastic.com and propeller.com.

Is he really talking about Perez Hilton (a.k.a. Mario Lavandiera)? Does he really attract the "Urban Uptown" PRIZM segmentation? Really? I laughed when it identified me with the target population of TMZ. Maybe Tancer IS on to something...

Is it just me, or is this book full of completely useless factoids that rarely fit the pieces of the puzzle together? I honestly do not see anything relevant in this chapter to share in our final presentation. Anyone disagree?

Chapter 3 Prom In January

Chapter 3 is about the spike in prom related (especially dress) searches starting as early as January contrary to what retailers think. With prom usually in May or late April, January is very early to be shopping. Tancer also examines this phenominon in the UK and shows very similar trends. He becomes alittle crazed about finding out the reason for this early search and gets into myspace as typical personas of teenage girls of different social sectors. The main answer he gets for why this is comes from a man in publishing that says the prom advertising is one of the biggest revenue builders in terms of advertising and so they start advertising earlier to make more money. At the end of the chapter Tancer throws in info on engagments and wedding dresses. He makes the statement that men could possible make one of the largest and most important purchases of thier life (an engagement ring) a week before the engagement while girls search for dresses months in advance. Engagment rings spike around the week before Thanksgiving and he theorizes this is because the guy wants to ask the parents permission when they go home for the holiday.

My thoughts:
-I thought it was weird and smart at the same time to look at myspace for consumer behaviors. However he looked at pictures, notes, etc about these teenage girls. In response, I increased my security on facebook.
-He seemed to be a little too obsessed with this whole prom dress thing. So much so that when he was at the lecture series in the UK they already knew this about him and asked him not to speak about it...which he did anyway. If someone has to ask you not to talk about prom dresses cause they already know you are obsessed with them, isn't that more weird than anything else?
-The whole engagement thing is pretty true. I would believe that men don't take as long as girls do to look for special items but I am not sure that I believe it is for the reason he says. I am sure some of it is but I think it might also be that time of year where people think about togetherness with all of the holidays. The year is beginning to wrap up and it is starting the beginning of the gift giving season, maybe there is more wiggle room on price at jewelers. That topic is still up in the air for me.

Chapter 4: Failed Resolutions and the False Hope Syndrome

This chapter focused on Internet searches during January. These searches reveal the key to what motivates us and what disappoints us. Tancer made an interesting correlation between dramatic ads for weight loss and search habits. Tancer also makes note of "false hope syndrome"; the greater our expectations, the greater our disappointment. Like other chapters in the book, this chapter also focuses on the psychology behind Internet searches. Consumers want to have control over some aspect of their lives and often use outrageous ad claims as tools to gain control.

NBC has gained publicity from its show The Biggest Loser. Some see the show as a motivating factor for people to get in shape. Internet searches for television shows and commercials increase drastically after they are aired. Since the show debut, more searches are highlighting fitness and nutrition as opposed to just dieting, proving that more people are interested in making lifestyle changes as opposed to quick fixes.

Traditionally, visitors to certain websites were often included in surveys or research studies. Because site demographics change frequently, that is not always the case in today's society. Some statistics suggest that couples are waiting longer to start families, which factors into the change in demographics within a year.

Some interesting things to note:
-The correlation between diet searches and Thanksgiving recipe searches (Most people pig out during the holidays but try to make up for it in the new year)
-Promotion of the author's blog (ilovedata.com)
-The rise of product placement is directly related to the rise of DVR usage
-Cookie tasting study
-The only bad publicity is no publicity (i.e. wardrobe malfunction)
-There are notes in the back of the book (pg 205) that may reveal a little insight into where Tancer gets some of his information but not necessarily how
-News events, especially tragic ones, bring about awareness on certain topics (deaths of Peter Jennings and Dana Reeve).
-Segues into each chapter

Chapter 2 - Getting to What we really think

This chapter focussed on the "question that keeps market researchers up at night". It was heavily centered on political searches and statistics, which was timely in a way with the November 2008 election being just a few short months ago. The author debated whether the number of hits to a political website could determine the outcome of the election. He described the link between what was being talked about in the news and the increase in hits on certain sites. This shows that there is a direct correlation between what is in the news and what people want more information on (via the web). No big surprise there.

Another major topic for the author in this chapter was how marketers can utilize 'click' data to determine which products are losing market share and brand equity. The example given (p 37) was for IBM's ThinkPad brand. The main point was that "Search and Internet" behavioral data can be used to provide insight into the decision process that consumers use and can be observed without the selection biases that are often found when using traditional surveys.

On page 42, the author mentions "Google Trends", which is a service that Google offers to rank search volume of specific terms. I was unclear if this data was provided or available to anyone. May have to look this up and research further...

Some interesting terminology was used in this chapter....good key words for our presentation! Clickstream Reports was one....and still something that I wish we could somehow get our hands on!