Chapter 8: Data Rocks and the Television-Internet Connection

Tancer begins the chapter by recalling his time at The New York Search Engine Strategies Conference, what he believes to be the one of the most popular conferences of the year (I’m guessing there were not a lot of conferences that year). Tancer reveals a little about his childhood and his apparent thirst for data at such a young age. He references another author, John Bartelle, and “the database of intentions,” a collection of what a sample of Internet users are searching on each day. Bartelle provides his description of the database: “This information represents, in aggregate form, a place holder for the intentions of humankind—a massive database of desires, needs, wants, and likes that can be discovered, subpoenaed, archived, tracked, and exploited to all sorts of ends.” This is basically a convoluted way of saying that a simple Internet search can spawn endless possibilities.

Speaking of convoluted, todays searchers have begun to include more information in their Internet searches. Maybe this has to do with the fact that there are entirely too many search results for a term as simple as “handbag” (46,400,000 via Google). What years ago may have just been a search for “handbag” has now grown to a search for “Stephen Sprouse Louis Vuitton bag” (which yields only 616,000 hits via Google).

Tancer talks about effective product placement and how it has the ability to influence Internet searches (although I’m not entirely convinced that The Apprentice was a representative example since its ratings have been fairly low, but I digress). Maybe Tancer is attempting to use product placement to increase viewership of the show?
Another round of product placement was showcased during the “Google Pontiac” commercial. During this time, I noticed just how much Tancer loves data. A simple request to google Pontiac translated into a plethora of questions about the specificity of the search.

Tancer gets his first taste of the online streaming video phenomenon courtesy of the Golden Spruce. This encountered happened by chance, mainly because Tancer was befuddled by some search results. Further research into the search term revealed that while Internet users do follow directions fairly well, they are even more likely to follow the directions when there is some incentive (i.e. a chance to win $100,000 courtesy of Treasure Hunters).



Tidbits:
Tancer loves data
Data is the new black.
Tancer is a fan of acronyms.
NBC is getting a lot of product (or network) placement in this chapter.