Uncategorized

The Three Search Behavior Patterns: Answer … Educate … Inspire

Phillip Nones Uncategorized , , , , , , , ,

Three mindsets of search, from Latitude consumer research survey (2011)Not long ago, I blogged about how the Internet has become as fundamental to our existence as the very air we breathe. On any given day, millions of people log on to the web to find answers to any number of questions they may have.

But despite the limitless subjects that are the topic of these searches, it turns out that search behaviors can be divided into three distinct categories.

That’s what research conducted earlier this year by survey firm Latitude Research found. The results of this highly interesting survey, which queried ~925 Americans age 21 to 54, revealed that users searching on the web exhibit just three major behavior patterns:

Answer Me – People in this mode want answers to exactly what they’re asking for … no less and no more. They also want the answers delivered to them in the most direct way possible. These types of queries are the largest component of searches … representing ~46% of all searches.

Educate Me – People in this mode are looking for comprehensive understanding on an issue, and they’re usually interested in multiple perspectives. They’ll search until their goal is satisfied … and this may occur over a lengthy period of time and through multiple searches on related topics. These types of queries make up ~26% of all searches, and they’re often on topics like finance and healthcare.

Inspire Me – The third category of queries are the creative, exploratory type of search where people have an open mind, are willing to be led, and are open to surprises. These types of searches represent the remaining ~28%, and are often on topics pertaining to the arts, hobbies, travel, home inspirations and gardening.

The Latitude Research report recommends that web sites include content that can appeal to all three categories of searches … although there will usually be a preponderance of one type over the others depending on the market segments, products and services involved.

The following suggestions were made for aligning content to query behaviors:

For “answer” searches … it’s wise to feature product/service benefits, in addition to presenting content in quick, easy-to-find answers. Clearly defined “selling” pitches work well in this setting.

For “educate” searches … present informative content that also provides ways to explore more facets of the issue … plus offering relevant links to additional online information sources. The “selling” in this case comes more in the form of educating and informing.

For “inspire” searches … focus on sparking the imagination of site visitors, with “surprise” moments that will generate interest and spur creative thought. When this is done effectively, strong sales pitches don’t need to be pushed because the viewer will be drawn into the buying process naturally and effortlessly.

For more on the interesting findings from the Three Mindsets of Search research study, click here.

Internet Lawsuits: Tilting at Windmills

Phillip Nones Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , ,

Court throws out another defamation lawsuit against Google
More of the same: The courts throw out yet another defamation lawsuit against Google.
To the casual observer, it seems like American society gets more litigious with every passing year … with legal judgments handed down in cases that might have seemed totally frivolous in earlier decades.

But one area where the courts don’t appear to be favoring plaintiffs at all is in the realm of Internet defamation lawsuits. No matter how many times someone brings a legal action – and with all sorts of corroborating evidence in hand — the cases are thrown out of court.

The most recent example of this comes from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which has just ruled in favor of Google in a lawsuit involving a family-owned roofing and construction business. The owners of the business had sued Google for defamation, citing an anonymous post that appeared on Google Places.

The anonymous poster claimed that “this company says it will fix my roof, but all I get are excuses.” According to the suit, this post has hurt business prospects, but it’s been impossible for the company to attempt to resolve the customer’s problem due to the anonymous nature of the post – or even to confirm that it represents an actual customer’s experience.

And I don’t doubt at all that business has suffered for this company as a result of the negative review. Results from a new survey conducted by Cone Communications reveals that ~80% of consumers have changed their minds about purchasing a product or service based solely on negative information they encountered online. That percentage is up from ~67% in 2010.

Clearly, online information has more power than ever to “make or break” a product or service these days.

But the appellate court sided with the district court that had ruled earlier that Google was immune from liability. The court wrote: “The district court properly dismissed plaintiffs’ action … because plaintiffs seek to impose liability on Google for content created by a third party.”

As in all the other cases it has successfully checkmated, Google moved to have the case dismissed on the grounds that the federal Communications Decency Act immunizes web sites for libel claims that stem from users’ comments.

I’ve blogged before about courts and the Internet, and it’s always the same: Trying to sue for “transgressions” carried out on the Internet is like banging your head against a wall.

The wall doesn’t budge, and all you end up with is a big headache.

So it bears repeating: If you’re thinking about bringing a legal action against someone because of an online issue, do yourself a favor. Don’t bother.

Holiday Consumer Spending Forecast Tracks the Economy: Just Muddling Along

Phillip Nones Uncategorized , , , , , , , , ,

The holiday shopping forecast for 2011 is pretty blah.If anyone was hoping for good news at the end of the year, it’s not coming in the form of increased holiday spending by consumers.

The National Retail Federation’s annual Holiday Consumer Intentions & Actions Survey concludes that holiday shoppers plan to spend an average of just over $700 on holiday gifts and seasonal merchandise.

That’s down slightly from last year’s holiday spending plans, which were closer to $720.

The chart below shows how average holiday spending has mirrored general economic conditions in the country over the past eight years:

 2004: ~$700
 2005: ~$735
 2006: ~$751
 2007: ~$755
 2008: ~$694
 2009: ~$681
 2010: ~$719
 2011: ~$704

After having grown to more than $750 in the 2006/07 period, a significant drop-off was seen in 2008 and 2009. With the recession bottoming out, this was followed by a tidy little jump in holiday spending 2010.

But just like the rest of the economic picture, things have stalled since then – or pulled slightly back.

In another recent survey, Ipsos Public Affairs has found that women are more likely than men to be planning to cut back on their holiday shopping outlays … as are people over age 35 compared to younger adults.

With consumers continuing to watch their wallets, it’s no surprise that many are taking advantage of savings opportunities. In the Ipsos survey, half of all respondents reported that they had used magazine coupons within the previous 30 days, and there was significant usage of online savings vehicles as well:

 Magazine or newspaper coupons: ~50% have used in the past 30 days
 Loyalty cards or in-store promos: ~47% have used
 Printable coupons from the web: ~28% have used
 Online “daily deal” coupons: ~27% have used
 Online coupon codes: ~25% have used

Despite the slightly lower figures for intended holiday spending in 2011, the National Retail Federation’s survey finds that nearly 40% of consumers will have already started their holiday shopping in October. A similar 40% plan to start shopping in November, while the remaining 20% won’t begin their shopping activities until September.

[A slim ~4% represent those procrastinators who don’t plan to start any of their shopping until the last two weeks of December; I think most of us all know at least one person who falls into this rarified category.]

And if you’re wondering how the average shopper plans to allocate his or her holiday spending this year, it comes as little surprise that shopping for gifts for children and other family members represents well over half of the value of planned purchases:

 Gifts for children, parents and other family members: ~$403
 Gifts for friends, co-workers and others: ~$112
 Holiday-related food items: ~$97
 Holiday decorations: ~$47
 Greeting cards: ~$27
 Flowers: ~$18

What about you? Do your holiday shopping plans for 2011 mirror what the NRF survey found?

Computer Voices: (Virtually) All Female

Phillip Nones Uncategorized , , , , , , , ,

Computer voices, voice-activated features, overwhelmingly femaleOwners of the new Apple iPhone 4S are no doubt becoming familiar with the new voice-activated feature, dubbed “Siri.”

Listening to the computer voice, it’s clear that Siri is a “she,” not a “he” … which has some journalists thinking about the fact that computer voices are overwhelmingly female.

There are some exceptions. The famous “You’ve got mail!” voice from AOL’s dial-up days is one. Plus the fact that nearly all voice-activated features in Germany utilize a male voice.

But otherwise, it’s nearly universal that these voices are female. The question is why?

Journalist Brandon Griggs, writing for CNN recently, reports that “one answer may lie in biology. Scientific studies have shown that people generally find women’s voices to be more pleasing than men’s.”

Clifford Nass, a professor of communications and computer science at Stanford University who has studied this topic closely, contends that it’s much easier to find a female voice that people like rather than a male voice.

“It’s a well-established phenomenon that the human brain is developed to like female voices,” Nass maintains. As proof, he cites a study in which fetuses were found to react to the sound of their mother’s voice … but not to their father’s.

I think another reason may be acclimatization. During World War II, my mother worked in air traffic control at the Parris Island Marine Corps Base. There were only women working these positions, and for a very practical reason: Their voices really stood out in the cockpit among the male pilots.

And what about telephone operators? For decades, they were nearly100% female voices.

Beginning in the 1980s, when auto makers first began installing automated voice prompts in cars (remember “Lights are on” and “Your door is ajar”?), consumer research found that drivers overwhelmingly preferred female voices to male ones. So is it any wonder that nearly all GPS navigation systems today have female-sounding speech as the default voice?

Not surprisingly, there are some people who contend that using a female voice as a “virtual assistant” is sexist in nature. But I’m not sure we can attribute “overt” sexism to the choices companies have made in this regard. Like with the auto companies, these decisions are probably based on market research.

So at best, it’s possible that the choice reflects some gender stereotyping that already exists in the general public.

On balance, I think it’s a positive that so many computer voices are female. After all, these voices have been selected based on attributes like warmth, friendliness and competence.

If that makes it sexist, so be it … but it puts most of the gold stars on the female side of the ledger, that’s for sure!

Online coupon deals: Take those “whopping” discounts with a grain of salt.

Phillip Nones Uncategorized , , , , , , , , ,

Online daily deals save you less than you might think.
That "big discount" you think you're getting? Chances are, it's based on inflating the regular price.
In the world of retail, while the way people buy goods and services may be evolving at a rapid clip, it turns out that some aspects have changed nary a bit.

Take online couponing. Groupon and LivingSocial are the two big players in this segment, which enables consumers to take advantage of deep discounts on products or services providing enough people sign up for the offer. They’ve been proliferating in retail markets all over the country.

But think back to the “bad old days” of brick-and-mortar retail. Often, you might encounter a “deep discount” at a grocery store or big box store, only to realize later that the discount was calculated off of an unrealistically high list price for the item.

While not illegal, such practices are certainly deceptive, in that the product was rarely if ever sold at the “standard” price.

Well, guess what? When looking at online coupon deals, we’re now finding the very same practices at work.

Recently, local local services online directory Thumbtack contacted vendors offering daily deals from Groupon or LivingSocial. Vendors were “shopped” in metro markets all across the country that included a variety of services ranging from home cleaning and maid services to interior painting, handyman services and studio photography.

In eight out of ten cases, Thumbtack found that it was quoted a price over the phone that was lower than the advertised “regular” price cited in the supposedly “great” deals being offered.

Two examples:

 On September 19, 2011, Groupon offered two hours of home cleaning services in Phoenix, AZ for $49 … an amount it claimed was 67% off of the “regular” price of $150. When contacted by phone, the non-discounted price for the exact same cleaning services was $80. So the consumer was still getting a discount … but hardly the 67% as breathlessly claimed.

 On August 24, 2011, Groupon offered carpet cleaning services for a 200 sq. ft. area in San Francisco, CA for $45 — purportedly a 78% discount from the regular price of $200. The price quoted over the phone for similar square footage? Just $106. No doubt, Groupon, LivingSocial and their participating vendors realize that one way to make an offer more attractive is to make sure the percentage discount is huge – and thus unlikely to be offered again.

It’s really no different from practices we’ve seen used in retail over many years. But as more consumers become more savvy to the ways of online deals, it’s quite likely that we’ll find fewer people choosing to participate in them based on the “whopping” discounts claimed.

The Consequences of Alabama’s New Immigration Law: Welcome to Economics 101

Phillip Nones Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , ,

Alabama's tough new immigration law (2011)Since the passing of Alabama’s tough new immigration law several months ago, two major things have happened:

1. Many immigrant workers have left the workforce.

2. Employers – especially agricultural operations – have found it nearly impossible to replace the lost workers.

In retrospect, neither development seems particularly surprising. Many immigrant workers, whether they’re here in the United States legally or not, fear the heavy hand of government and will opt to find a more inviting environment than the one in Alabama today. For now at least, that environment is better in nearly all of the other 49 states.

And while the jobs no longer being done by immigrants may now be sought by American citizens – after all, the ~9.9% unemployment rate in Alabama is higher than the overall U.S. rate – the appetite for doing many of these jobs dissipates quickly when people are confronted by the reality of what is required to perform them.

Alicia Caldwell, an Associated Press reporter, spoke last week with some Alabama farmers to find out what has happened since Americans were hired to replace immigrant workers.

“Most show up late, work slower than seasoned farm hands and are ready to call it a day after lunch or by mid-afternoon. Some quit after a single day,” Caldwell reported in her AP article published last week.

As a result, farmers are opting to leave crops in the field rather than harvesting them.

What we have here is a classic Economics 101 lesson. If workers aren’t willing to do the jobs at a labor cost that will enable the products to be sold at a competitive price, the crops won’t be brought to market.

If agricultural operations in the whole world faced the same situation as Alabama farmers, it’s possible that a new labor/price equilibrium could be established. But not only is Alabama competing against other states where immigrant labor continues to be used, it’s also competing against other countries that produce the same crops.

The result? No one is winning. Not the farmers … not the immigrant workers … nor the unemployed Americans who have decided that ramaining unemployed is preferable to working a difficult or unpleasant job.

The Alabama state government is attempting to support the transition away from immigrant workers. A program started recently seeks to pair Alabamians interested in jobs with the state’s farming operations that need replacement labor.

So far, the results of this effort haven’t been encouraging, with only ~260 people registering interest in temporary agricultural jobs.

Out in the field, reporter Caldwell has found ample anecdotal evidence that underscores the disconnect between the “theory” versus “practical reality” of unemployed Americans taking advantage of these new job opportunities:

Tomato farmer Wayne Smith said he has never been able to keep a staff of American workers in his 25 years of farming.

“People in Alabama are not going to do this,” said Smith, who grows about 75 acres of tomatoes in the northeast part of the state. “They’d work one day and then just wouldn’t show up again.”

At this farm, field workers get $2 for every 25-pound box of tomatoes they fill. Skilled pickers can make anywhere from $200 to $300 a day, he said. Unskilled workers make much less.

A crew of four Hispanics can earn about $150 each by picking 250-300 boxes of tomatoes in a day, said Jerry Spencer of Grow Alabama, which purchases and sells locally owned produce. A crew of 25 Americans recently picked 200 boxes – giving them each $24 for the day.

Years ago, an old Russian emigré professor of Slavic history and literature at Vanderbilt University advised us students, “As you grow older and wiser, you’ll come to realize that the great issues of the day can’t be debated in black and white. Because the two sides aren’t black and white; they’re really shades of gray.”

Those words could well be applied to the immigration debate and its socioeconomic consequences. Certainly, one “black and white” issue that should be banished from the discussion is the notion that if all of the jobs done by illegal immigrants were to become available to Americans, our unemployment problem would be magically solved.

Mini Cooper and Tata Nano: Two Sizzling Cars that are Just Smokin’!

Phillip Nones Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , ,

Mini Cooper car on fire.
The Mini Cooper: Not exactly "sizzling" in the way their owners would like.
Tata Nano vehicle on fire.
Tata Nano: One smokin' vehicle.
The news that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating complaints of engine fires in Mini Cooper “S” auto models from 2007 and 2008 reminds us that the “explosive” popularity of small cars is sometimes accompanied by “smokin’” performance of a completely different nature.

The Mini Cooper’s engine fires have resulted in blazes that can destroy the entire car … and some of those fires happened after the vehicles had been shut off. Owners of the Mini Cooper, Cooper Clubman and Cooper Convertible, you’ve been fairly warned!

Hopefully, the findings from the NHTSA investigation won’t be as crippling for the Mini Cooper as similar investigations of the Tata Nano car in India. That vehicle burst on the scene in 2009 to breathless praise from all quarters, ranging from top industrial designers to leading consumer advocates.

With a base price of just $2,200 – lower than any other car in the world – along with noteworthy styling that had the design world abuzz, it was an irresistible story of the confluence of value engineering and design chic.

Until the car’s engines starting catching on fire.

Tata Motors has been frantically working on the problem in recent months, adding new safety features to the Nano (now dubbed the “Tata No-No” by more than a few industry observers). The manufacturer has also extended the car’s warranty to four years and is offering big discounts and cheap financing to maintain sales levels.

Nevertheless, the company has seen monthly unit purchases slide by more than 80%. It’s certainly a far cry from the heady days of 2008 when the Tata Nano won the prestigious Innovation Award in the Transportation category and was the toast of the design world.

Will the Mini Cooper follow the Tata Nano into automotive ignominy? Likely not. But it’s a huge black eye for a car brand that’s been nearly immune from criticism – at least until now.

One thing’s for sure: Before this week, no one would have expected the Mini Cooper and Tata Nano to be spoken about in the same breath. Now they’re the Bobbsey Twins. And that has to be really bad news for the Mini Cooper.

Pew Monitors Changing Views about the News Media

Phillip Nones Uncategorized , , , , , , , ,

News media organizations losing luster with Americans
News organizations are losing their luster with Americans, according to the Pew Research Center.
The Pew Research Center for People and the Press has been surveying American adults since 1985 about their views of the news media.

A new comprehensive report, incorporating results up to and including field surveys conducted in 2011, finds that negative opinions about the performance of news media are higher than ever on nine of twelve key measures studied.

Here are some sobering stats from this year’s consumer pulse:

 ~66% of respondents believe that news stories are often inaccurate
 ~77% think that news organizations tend to favor one side over another politically
 ~80% believe that news organizations are influenced by powerful people and organizations

The findings on the accuracy of news reporting are particularly striking. As few as four years ago, ~39% of respondents felt that news organizations “mostly get the facts straight” while ~53% believed that the news stories were “often inaccurate.”

Today’s those numbers look more depressing: Only ~25% say that news organizations tend to get the facts straight, while ~66% contend that news stories are often inaccurate.

[Of course, when it comes to respondents’ own preferred news outlets, the figures don’t look nearly as dismal. In fact, nearly two thirds of the respondents believe their preferred news sources get the facts mostly correct.]

Who does the public see as the leading “news media” these days? Cable TV organizations clearly lead in the rankings, with network news now pushed down the list:

 ~43% named CNN as a “news organization”
 ~39% named Fox News
 ~18% named NBC News
 ~16% named ABC News
 ~12% named CBS News
 ~12% named MSNBC
 ~10% named local TV news

It’s been a long fall for CBS News in particular, which was once considered the ace news broadcast network in the United States.

In general terms, who do people trust most as a source of news? The answer may be surprising to some: Top-ranked are local news organizations:

 Local news organizations: ~69% of people have “a lot” or “some” trust
 National news organizations: ~59%
 State government: ~51%
 Presidential administration: ~50%
 Federal government agencies: ~44%
 Business corporations: ~41%
 U.S. Congress: ~37%
 Political candidates: ~29%

And as far as where people go for news, TV and the Internet continue to be the top two sources. But consider how those rankings have changed. Five years ago, TV was cited by 74% of survey respondents as one of the two top news sources … but that figure has now declined to ~66%.

As for the Internet, it’s grown from ~24% saying it’s a top-two source for news in 2007, to ~43% today.

Meanwhile, newspapers are staying on the decline … so that today, only ~31% of respondents place them among the two top sources of news. Newspapers continue to have their partisans among the over-65 age segment, but younger than this, it’s just a lost cause.

But there’s one bright spot for newspapers: They continue to be recognized as a leading source of local news. This helps explain why many small-town and local papers have been better able to navigate the choppy waters of newspaper publishing better than their big-city counterparts.

There are many more interesting findings outlined in the latest Pew news organization survey. For more details, click here.

Drama and Danger in the World of Social Media

Phillip Nones Uncategorized , , , , , , , ,

Drug cartels in MexicoI’ve blogged before about how social media has had a major (positive) impact on political and social movements, such as the “Arab Spring” uprisings and the democracy movement in Moldova. But recent news out of Mexico shows how the same social media can contribute to additional fear and violence in a society that already has more than its share of drama and danger.

In recent weeks, CNN has reported that social media is causing citizens living in the regions of Mexico beset by dangerous drug cartel activity to be injured – or even killed. In the border city of Nuevo Laredo, the bodies of a man and a woman were found hanging from a highway overpass, with threatening notes nearby promising a similar fate to other so-called “Internet snitches.”

According to the CNN news story, the two people were killed for messages they had posted online pertaining to drug violence in areas of Mexico where the professional news media are no longer able to do their job.

Because drug trafficker threats have essentially silenced reporting activity in these border regions, the local citizens have resorted to filling the information gap by using social media like Twitter and Facebook to convey the latest information to their fellow citizens.

The notes affixed to the dead bodies in Nuevo Laredo appear to have been left by members of two notorious drug cartels that are intimately engaged in the region’s bloody turf wars.

The killings point to a dangerous new front that’s opened up in the drug wars: In the absence of credible news reporting, many residents of the borderlands have turned to social media platforms for learning and sharing information. Using #hashtags that tie Twitter posts together has become an important “sorting” mechanism by which postings from individual Twitter accounts can be bundled into a sort of jerry-rigged news service. Many examples of “news report bundling” exist, such as for cities like Monterrey, Veracruz, Saltillo and Reynosa.

Andrés Monroy-Hernández of MIT’s Media Lab has studied this phenomenon, and declares that these ad hoc news bureaus have been effective.

“Most of the information is reliable, and the information that is not often goes ignored … [these bureaus] serve as curators and do a decent job at it,” the Mexican native asserts. He also points out that about half of the Twitter messages are actually retweets, meaning that people are cooperating with one another in spreading the information.

But the startling events of last week remind us that local residents who are using social media to navigate the chaos of the drug wars are themselves becoming targets in the drama.

Even the Mexican government is in on the action. Recently, it charged two Veracruz citizens with “terrorism and sabotage” for passing along rumors of a pending cartel attack on a school that resulted in an outbreak of panic at the school property.

The Mexican government’s action set off a wave of criticism from all sides. Amnesty International went on record stating that the drug war “creates a climate of distrust in which rumors circulate on social media as people try to protect themselves, because there is no reliable information available.”

The chaos that is enveloping Mexico – and the tragic consequences that stem from it – seem hard to imagine happening so close to the U.S. border. It’s also a reminder that the “brave new world” of social media can harbor grave dangers in addition to great promise.

And in this case, it can even get you killed.

Are e-Readers Changing our Reading Habits?

Phillip Nones Uncategorized , , , , , , , ,

e-reader products available todayE-readers have become the rage. That’s clear from how many people are now using them.

A Harris Interactive survey of ~2,180 consumers in July 2011 has found that ~15% of Americans over age 18 are using an e-reader device. That’s about double the percentage compared to last year’s poll.

Beyond this, another ~15% reported that they’re likely to buy one within the next six months.

The Harris research found some interesting regional differences in e-reader usage. I was quite surprised to learn that e-readers haven’t taken off nearly as strongly in the Midwest as compared to the other three regions of the country:

 Westerners: ~20% have an e-reader
 Easterners: ~19%
 Southerners: ~14%
 Midwesterners: ~9%

What are the characteristics of those who own e-readers, besides where they live? It turns out they’re far more active readers than the rest of the population.

For example, about one third of all survey respondents reported that they read more than 10 books during the year. But for those who own an e-reader, that percentage was nearly 60%.

And just because someone owns an e-reader doesn’t mean they’re stopped purchasing actual books. While one-third of all the survey respondents reported that they haven’t purchased any books in the past year … that percentage was only 6% of those who use e-readers.

The criticism commonly heard that e-readers may be the death knell for traditional books because cause people to download fewer books than they would purchase in physical form may not carry much weight, if the Harris survey results are to be believed.

On the contrary, the e-reader phenomenon appears to be making some people even more voracious readers than before. About one third of the e-reader respondents in the survey reported that they read more now than before – and not just on their e-readers.

Clearly, e-readers represent a phenomenon that’s taken firm hold and is here to stay. But whether it’s radically changing the reading habits of its users … that remains an open question. The early signs suggest “no.”

What about your experience? Have your habits changed with the advent of e-readers? How so?