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Friday, August 08, 2008
More people use online search than ever - but Google isn't winning
More people than ever before are spending part of their day searching online. The latest research from the Pew Internet group has revealed that apart from email, it's the most common thing we do online. Almost half of all people who go online each day engage in search.
At first sight this might sound like it's great new for Google. But it isn't - look inside the report of this study and you discover that the reason for the dramatic increase in search is not taking place in search engines. Instead we are using a variety of other search tools, such as site-specific search or search within social networking sites. In other words, we know broadly where to go to get the information we want - we then use specialised and localised search facilities to narrow down our hunt.
Also, crucial to the increase in search activity is the availability of broadband and home wireless networks. It seems that we don't do much searching if we don't have good Internet connections; instead we just go straight to what we want.
This implies that much of the search behaviour is non productive - we do it because we can, rather than because we need to. But it also means something else for anyone running a web site or an online business. Search is now so central to our online activities that if your web site does not have its own search facility you are failing to meet what growing numbers of web users want.
Researchers at McKinsey, the business analysts, have discovered that the initial enthusiasm there was for "Web 2.0" is now waning. In fact, far fewer businesses have taken up things like blogging and social networking than was predicted.
As you can see from McKinsey's own graph (above) on average only around a third of all businesses have actually engaged in any form of Web 2.0. Hardly a resounding ring of support for these new technologies is it?
Yet blogging, for instance, has been with us for more than 10 years - it's hardly new in the Internet world. Social networks also began 10 years ago - Ecademy, for instance, was one of the first online social networks and that was formed more than 10 years ago now. Business has had time to catch up.
So why are they not engaging with these new technologies as much as the pundits predicted? In spite of Business Week magazine claiming over three years ago that blogging was a business pre-requisite, most businesses have yet to take it up. True, there has been an increase since the last time McKinsey did its survey, but still the majority of businesses do not engage in any Web 2.0 activities.
The answer is simple: there's no money in it. In spite of what you may read about "making millions from blogging", most of the people doing that are actually writing blogs about "making millions from blogging". For the rest of us, blogging and social networking is more about brand, reputation, image, presence etc. And those are the bits of business that hard-nosed CEOs can't put a value on.
You can't easily calculate the ROI on blogging or social networking. So, unless someone in a firm can put together a business case, it tends to get ignored. The McKinsey report shows us that there is increasing dissatisfaction with Web 2.0 as a whole. Those people using it are finding it of less value it seems. That would imply that we are already at the peak of interest in Web 2.0. But that is tosh.
We are so early in the use of blogging and social networking as a business tool that people are still experimenting. We are in the phase of early adoption. Business thinking actually moves much more slowly than we'd like to accept, so it is going to be several years yet before big companies truly see the financial benefit of blogging. Meanwhile, of course, all those online start-ups are busy stealing their customers. By the time big business wakes up to the benefits of Web 2.0 and realises there is a financial benefit, it could be too late.
Check your email - quick - another one might be in....!
How often do you check your email? When you install email software, such as Microsoft Outlook, it is set up to automatically check for new messages every 10 minutes. Few people change the default settings, so most people get used to emails popping into their inbox regularly throughout the day. It becomes the norm to keep on seeing that inbox grow.
But wait a mo....! When you didn't have email, did you check your postbox every 10 minutes for physical mail? Or did once, or perhaps twice a day, do?
A new study by AOL has revealed we are becoming ever more addicted to email. According to the research, almost half (46%) admit to being hooked on email. So much so that people even check their emails while in the bathroom, on a date, or even during a church service. In response, AOL recommends clearing out your inbox, getting a new email address and starting again.
But that's no answer - all that will happen is that your new email address will also get checked every few minutes, your inbox will grow and you'll find yourself checking for messages while making love.
It doesn't have to be like this. You can break free from the clutches of email.
Step One: Change the default settings on your email program to check only every four hours.
Step Two: Set up a special folder in your email program called "Action"
Step Three: When you check your emails (now every four hours) move the emails you need to deal with to the Action folder. Ignore the rest.
Step Four: Set a time in your schedule to deal with the Action folder - this is a once-a-day time, perhaps at 4pm.
Step Five: Go through the Action folder at your scheduled Action time and deal with the emails - then file them
Email addiction is nothing of the sort - it is merely an inability to take control. Most people are letting Microsoft run their daily life by accepting the nonsensical default of 10-minute checking.
And if you think this will not work - consider the case of Tim Ferris. He wrote "The 4 Hour Work Week". He only deals with emails twice a day and manages to earn a million dollar fortune and run a busy, enjoyable life without being ever-stuck to his inbox. His book demonstrates that by reducing your checking of emails you can actually increase both productivity and profit. We have all become umbilically connected to our inboxes through no reason, other than habit and assumption. We assume that our emails need immediate attention, when in fact, they do not. As I have said before, if it is really, really urgent you will get a phone call, not an email.
At my day job, my predecessor must have followed this advice as he checked his email no more than twice in an any given business day. The result was that opportunities to quote were lost, approval stages were missed and overall communication with clients suffered. I work in a fast paced environment and even having Outlook programmed to check every 10 minutes can be too slow sometimes.
A client cannot phone back changes to a file, or phone in a graphic file.
I don't see how not checking your e mail can be productive.
My own small study of email productivity shows that those who check LESS are MORE productive. The reason your colleague lost out was probably nothing to do with his email checking - it would only have been one component.
True, clients can't easily phone changes or phone in a graphic file. But how often is a graphic file or a change needed within, say, four hours? If it's needed more quickly, then email is not up to the job anyway.
Some of the most successful people I know in fast paced businesses, such as web design, media, graphics and IT, are those who check their email least often.
Don't forget - the Internet exists "within" the real world - it's not a separate place...!
Sometimes data comes along and you just have to go - "oh my goodness, how daft is that?". Well, new research from search engine marketing specialists, iProspect, shows that the vast majority of online marketers appear to have forgotten there is a real world out there. That's because this study shows that the majority of people responsible for marketing their businesses online tend to ignore offline marketing.
Say that again? That's right, the study shows that online businesses are largely ignoring the offline marketing they could be doing. Even more surprising is that a quarter of online companies say they don't integrate their search engine marketing with their offline marketing because they are not doing any offline marketing whatsoever.
That's patent stupidity. Search engine marketing is part of the "mix" of all the marketing you do. Even if you say you do no offline marketing - you do. People don't see you mentioned in newspapers, for instance and make the assumption when they bump into your web site that you can't be as good as those folks they read about last week. Or, what if one your staff attends a business meeting and hands out a business card, with an old email address on that they have had to cross out and handwrite a new one in - that's marketing...! It shows what a duff company you are.
There are clearly businesses which believe that the only marketing they have to do is online - but as the pie chart above shows, the online marketing exists within an offline world. In fact if you ignore offline marketing you are significantly reducing your sales potential. Even those Internet Marketers who sell millions of ebooks online do a great deal of offline marketing at events, for instance.
The iProspect study reveals the fact that many online businesses have failed to understand how people arrive at their web sites. Most people get to most web sites as a result of places other than search engines. If you concentrate on search engine marketing alone, you are neglecting a significant proportion of your potential audience.
A couple of years back, there was much talk about the increased use of online video, thanks to the launch of YouTube. Then along came video on the iPod and the BBC launched its iPlayer. The online video revolution, we were told, was upon us; soon, we were "reliably" informed by all those gurus, that we'd stop watching the TV and that the Internet was going to be the place where we would watch video. Some even predicted the end of broadcasting.
Well, unless I'm in some parallel universe, broadcasters are doing OK; true they might be down in advertising revenue, but on the whole, viewing figures are holding up. People haven't rushed headlong to watch video online.
New research confirms this. A study by the consultancy firm Frank. N. Magid shows that only 7% of people watch fewer DVDs, for instance, because they watch online video instead. Six out of ten people still prefer broadcast media to online media, according to the study.
Why might this be? Online video tends to be very short - often only a couple of minutes. Flash technology limited video to 10 minutes anyway, as did YouTube. The result was we were all told (by those gurus again) that people don't want to watch long videos online - they prefer short ones.
But that's the same approach as saying that people on a desert island prefer to drink coconut milk - if it's the only milk they can get, of course they prefer it. Online, video has only ever been short, so there is tons of evidence that people only watch short videos online.
However, think about our experience of broadcast media - it's centred around 30 minutes, 50 minutes, 60 minutes and 120 minutes slots. Long, long, long. Deep down we expect video to be long - at least 30 minutes. No wonder we don't like watching video online - it's too short; it doesn't match our expectations of what video should be, hence we shy away from it.
So, what should you do? Start producing long videos for your web site - not short ones. The notion that people have short attention spans is nonsense - otherwise they wouldn't be watching hour-long programmes on TV. If the content is good and gripping they will watch. The danger with short video is that the largely amateur programme makers don't have to make good content because it doesn't last long enough for people to really notice that much.
But you can't get away with this for long - eventually people will realise that the bulk of what YouTube dishes up is garbage. Your web site can stand out if you produce good, quality LONG video.
Interesting article, I agree longer video is generally much more satisfying, in a similar way that most people prefer novels to short stories. The success of the BBC's iplayer shows that people are quite happy to watch long video on their computers, but producing quality long video is difficult. Even professional broadcasters struggle to stop people channel hopping. I think the argument is less about short video 'v' long video and more about quality. When it comes down to it I sure it is possible for websites to produce engaging long video but it will take a lot of investment as making quality television programmes is not cheap and a talking head for 30 minutes is not going to cut it.
Gordon Fletcher www.skinflakesblog.blogspot.com http://twitter.com/skinflakes skinflakesblog@gmail.com Gordon Fletcher www.skinflakesblog.blogspot.com http://twitter.com/skinflakes skinflakesblog@gmail.com
Hello. Just two things: I think its the same idea that apply to the written word: the short blog posts are the rule. Long posts or articles are more dificult to write.
You mention the amateur factor, but I think its most the fact that everybody are giving their content for free.
Reminds me an article on teachingsales.com a proyect by copyblogger.com that talks about the relation between free content vs paid content on free television and cable tv.
Before the Internet came along there were two main ways of finding suitable suppliers for things we wanted to buy. If we knew we wanted something but didn't know who to get it from, the first thing we used to do was ask a friend or colleague. And if they couldn't come up with the answer we had to thumb our way through Yellow Pages.
Then, the Internet arrived and we had a "third person" we could ask. Gradually, web sites replaced the Yellow Pages. Indeed, each year now we get two copies of Yellow Pages delivered (because we have two phone lines) and both of them sit in a corner gathering dust. I can't remember the last time I looked inside Yellow Pages - can you?
For the past few years we have changed our habits. We have carried on asking friends and colleagues for advice on where to buy things, then heading off to the Internet if they can't suggest a suitable place to go. But things are changing.
New research shows that over the past year we have been dumping our friends in favour of the Internet. Now, 58% of people go to the Internet FIRST to find suitable suppliers, only then asking their friends and colleagues if they can't find what they want online.
In other words, the Internet has become the most important place for finding suitable suppliers, products and services for most people. It is our new best friend.
If you run an online business, or promote any products or services via a web site, this has important implications for you. It means you need to generate customer reviews, allow customers to contribute to your site to comment on your services and generally allow "user generated" pages to be created so that your web site visitors can see recommendations and reviews - that's what they are looking for.
People are seeking from the Internet what they used to get from their friends and neighbours - honest, third-party, independent advice and suggestions. Your business now needs them to be online because that's where bulk of your customers are looking.
Sometimes data comes along and you just have to go - "oh my goodness, how daft is that?". Well, new research from search engine marketing specialists, 
It's even worse for me Graham. Microsoft Exchange and "push" technology on my PDA gets me addicted 24/7. Best to switch off!