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iCrossing: Google’s Share Of Search Almost 77 Percent

Written on October 27, 2009 by admin

Filed Under: Object

We received some interesting data from search agency iCrossing yesterday. The data show US search market share percentages and distribution quite different than the major traffic metrics firms. The company says its numbers are “based on a large representative sample of Fortune 1000 companies, across all major verticals,” which use its search tracking tools.
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iCrossing: Google’s Share Of Search Almost 77 Percent

Social Media and Content Discovery: A Growing Relationship

Written on October 6, 2009 by admin

Filed Under: marketing

While the commercial Internet age is in its teens according to linear age it has some difficulty focusing. Just when users are getting used to a world that is search engine centric there comes along the social web or social media or social networking or social (insert your word here) to truly change how people make sense of the sheer volume of data on the Internet. This change or movement toward the social web is happening at an ever increasing rate and creates opportunities as well as difficulties for those who are trying to harness this power for business.

Nielsen reports at its blog in a post from Jon Gibbs, VP Media Analytics

In the beginning there were ISPs, which then gave way to portals ― aggregators of content and links ― which then led to the rise of “search” as the dominant form of Internet navigation or, how we get to where we we’re going on the web. However, as with most forms of evolution, change is constant, and over the past two years search navigation has appeared to shift to social media.

We continue to see that social media has not only changed the way consumers communicate and gather on the Web, but also impacted content discovery and navigation in a big way. But how? Is social media taking the place of portals and search as the hub of online navigation?

Nielsen goes on to categorize people as either ‘searchers’ who primarily get their data from search engines, ‘portalists’ who use a portal site to access data and ‘socializers’ who use, you guessed it, social media to get their information. As this last group grows there could be some significant implications moving forward for everyone who is using the Internet for business.

As a result the socializer group actually feels that there is too much information on the Internet. Much more so than those who simply use search engines. Think about it. A search engine user takes it on faith (the vast majority of the time) that the entire Internet for a keyword or key phrase is boiled down to just 10 best results. Of course, if they only take their online sophistication that far then the Internet does appear to be easy to manage. Socializers, on the other hand, spend a lot more time online and hear / see a lot more than regular Internet users. It can become very noisy very quickly.

So how do they manage this? Through their online social network of buddies, of course. At this point, now the real recommendations and buying decisions are happening based on what other people, not an impersonal engine says. Hopefully, they are giving actual experience to help their online connections make more informed purchasing decisions. That’s the theory at least. Take a look at the significant differences in how socializers and searchers use various formats for information. Why Wikipedia is even part of the discussion baffles me but what do I know?

So what are you? Searcher? Portalist? Socializer? A little of all of them. Will social media displace search engines as a primary source of information in the near future? What does it mean to you TODAY as an Internet marketer? Share your thoughts and let’s learn from each other.

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Social Media and Content Discovery: A Growing Relationship

Google at Its Minimalist Best?

Written on October 6, 2009 by admin

Filed Under: marketing

Google is well known for many things to many people. Of course, search comes to mind. Then there’s e-mail and apps and on and on and on. Finally, there is the concern of world domination but that’s at least a year or two away so we can all breathe easier.

One design element that Google has been both famous and notorious for is its minimalist look, particularly on its home page. The simple search box and Google logo are as much a part of the Google brand and image than anything it actually does. Maybe that’s why it’s the most recognizable brand on the planet.

TechCrunch brings to our attention Google’s attempt to be even more minimalist if that’s possible.

We all know that Google is a big fan of minimalism, especially when it comes to its famous homepage, where it tries to keep its ‘word count‘ down to 28 words (actually, it looks like it might be up to around 30). Tonight, Google is apparently experimenting with taking that concept to a whole new level: the site is bucket testing a new effect that hides everything on the Google homepage aside from the search box and Google’s logo, only revealing the rest of the navigation elements with a nifty fade effect when you move your mouse.

Not surprisingly the homepage looks like you might imagine without anything but the essentials.

While this is far from earth shattering it is interesting in that Google even entertains the idea of taking things to the absolute bare minimum. I rarely, if ever, go to the homepage myself since toolbar access to the engine makes more sense to me but there are likely to be a lot of people who use the page to access the engine. I am amazed at how often I watch people actually type full URL’s in the search box to get to a site rather than in the browser itself.

So is there a need for Google to be any more minimal in its design than it already is? Does anyone really even care? The only time I even take notice of the Google logo anymore is if there is a special rendition to commemorate some event that Google deems important. Is this because Google is burned into my psyche or is it that I don’t really care about the logo, just the functionality? I’m so indifferent I’ll let you tell me which it is.

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Google at Its Minimalist Best?