Category: Search Behavior
Corporate Christmas Eve
Posted by on December 21, 2007 at 08:04 AM
Today is Corporate Christmas Eve. A day to wrap up a week of zoning out because our extended family is en route; a day to remove the soggy lunches from the break room refrigerators that were ignored due to the week-long potluck; a day to reflect upon the good times you would have had with your holiday bonus check had you not purchased a boat in June. It is important that while we are rushing about, in-and-out of stores and websites, that we take time to acknowledge the blessings that have been placed upon us. The fact that you are...
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Support Indie Search, While You Still Can
Posted by chip on October 26, 2007 at 02:58 PM
One of my all time favorite search engines, WiseNut, has closed up shop - and it went with what I would consider to be less than a whimper.
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Fantasy Football Injury Reports from Google
Posted by duncan on September 19, 2007 at 09:16 AM
The fantasy football season is here. Did you know you can use some of Google's advanced search tools to quickly dig out injury reports?
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Listen to the Google Voice In Your Head
Posted by dave on February 07, 2007 at 01:16 PM
As Senator Ted Stevens taught us, the internet is a series of tubes. Personally, I think it is much more. The internet is like a huge online garage sale. You may go there looking for vintage records, and walk away with Rockem Sockem Robots (the metal version, not plastic one), or a Snake Eyes action figure with all the original accessories. This exploratory discovery process that the internet provides is what makes it special - You can always find something new or interesting. Now, with Personalized Search, Google is threatening to take the uniqueness of the internet away. The goal...
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Goodbye, Godfather
Posted by geoff on December 26, 2006 at 10:53 AM
I'm assuming that by now, most of you have heard of James Brown's passing. The hardest working man in show business, on his deathbed, was still urging doctors to let him perform on New Year's Eve. It's that spirit, that energy, that sense of respect for the music and performance that made him The Godfather of Soul. He was the American Idol when Simon Cowell was still in short pants and learning how to spell "deplorable". Brown's fingerprints are all over contemporary urban music and his live performances will always be the measuring stick against which other live performances are...
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Britney Spears & Jessica Simpson - The Search Is On
Posted by on December 07, 2006 at 11:38 AM
At home, my wife has our home page set to Yahoo's home page, so you can imagine how often I see the changing articles. Among my favorites on the site is the "Features" section, where I am often tantalized by some eye-grabbing image that makes me click through to the story. There's always some new temptation. But what never seems to change much on Yahoo! is the "Popular Searches" section. Everyday, it seems like either Jessica Simpson or Britney Spears is the number one result, often accented with a perky picture of the singer next to the box. With so...
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Last Minute e-Shopping - A New Holiday Tradition
Posted by chip on November 21, 2006 at 01:30 PM
Well this week marks the official start of the holiday shopping season, Black Friday is upon us, and I know that we can all feel the excitement. While I personally don't plan on hitting the stores at 5am to battle crazed crowds of people looking to score the greatest deal since a Snickers was a nickel - incidentally my wife does each and every year - I do plan on engaging in a different holiday tradition, which I have been diligent in practicing for a few years now. What is this new holiday tradition you ask? Regrettably it's not raising...
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AOL Search Logs Reveal the Importance of Copywriting
Posted by steve on August 16, 2006 at 11:46 AM
By now, many of you have heard about AOL's mistake of releasing three months worth of search logs to the public last week. The logs were posted on a research site for a short period of time, allowing visitors to inspect the data and help build a better understanding of how users search the web. After an outbreak of blog posts publicized the release, the AOL search log, containing over 30 million search queries of more than 650,000 users, was taken down. But it was too late. Mirror sites were already up and running and privacy advocates were up in...
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Surfing with Mom
Posted by on August 10, 2006 at 04:21 PM
I’m not an average web surfer. As a designer, I spend enough time sifting through sites and analyzing design to realize that I have evolved. It’s a reality that became painfully obvious last night as I sat and watched my Mom searching on the web. There’s nothing better than surfing with Mom in order to get back in touch with the every-day web user. I think anyone involved in usability should do it at least once in their career. Mom was going widget hunting and I was fortunate enough to observe. IE 6 opened in no time (forget Firefox)...
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The X-Men 3 Secret Ending & Searching Film Credits
Posted by duncan on June 05, 2006 at 08:25 AM
With the Detroit Pistons out of the 2006 NBA Playoffs, my wife and I had an unexpected night with nothing planned. We called on a couple of film buff friends and decided to go see the new X-Men 3 movie. It wasn't a hard choice for any of us as we are already fans of the series. We were lucky enough to have a friend with us that knew there was a secret ending. As it turns out the secret ending followed the credits at the end of the film. While we waited in anticipation of the final bits of...
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eBay Fever - A Newbie Goes Shopping
Posted by anne on May 25, 2006 at 10:43 AM
Okay, you're right! I finally succumbed to peer pressure; I'm purchasing my unmentionables on the web! Breaking promises and a core belief that shopping on the internet would never enter the realms of my simple existence, I agreed to try it once. With sweaty palms and first date jitters, I asked eBay to be my companion for the evening. Now to most of you reading this blog, eBay has been around as long as bottled water. To me, however, the act of purchasing products online violates an additional commandment: "Thou Shall Not Make Purchases on the Internet with a Credit...
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del.icio.us is delicious
Posted by on April 26, 2006 at 01:52 PM
So I have stumbled upon something quite wonderful on the web, my little hidden gem if you will, although it’s not that hidden anymore. A colleague of mine introduced me to del.icio.us a few months back, proclaiming his love of social bookmarking. To be honest I thought “cool, a place to store your bookmarks… what’s so special about this again?” Obviously, I had not witnessed del.icio.us in all of it’s wonder and glory. For anyone unfamiliar with social bookmarking, it’s an online repository which allows users to store and tag their favorite links with content relevant keywords. Users are able...
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Shelf Life of SEO
Posted by anne on March 27, 2006 at 10:07 AM
As we move into the information age of technology, positioning on the internet rollercoaster is just that, “a whirl of a ride.” What may be in place one day can conceivably change the next. It’s all about the positioning of a company - where one ranks in the search engine listings can equate to the success or demise of a company. It made me wonder how we evolved to this era of technology. Did we anticipate a wide-world market at our fingertips allowing us the power and ability to promote a product or service? How does one anticipate the juncture...
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Will Link Churn Remove the B from A/B Testing?
Posted by dave on January 17, 2006 at 03:09 PM
Which is better 1 or 2? 2 or 3? 2 or 4? As you sit in the optometrist's chair blurry eyed and dilated, a marketing marvel is happening to you: A/B testing. Your doctor of vision is building on a proven practice, which they know will help you reach the goal of clearer sight. A/B testing for web sites works in the same way. It tests and builds on what marketers already know, to come up with a conclusion that helps focus on a specific goal. Simple and effective, A/B testing utilizes a constant from which aspects of a page,...
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More Netizens Becoming Search Engine Users
Posted by on November 29, 2005 at 12:12 PM
Have you ever Googled for a shrimp curry recipe? Exclaimed "Yahoo!" when you found the complete discography of your favorite Scandinavian-folk-rap artist? Did you Ask Jeeves why it's so hard to think of a verb for "MSN Search"? If so, you're probably one of the 60 million American adults who use search engines daily, according to a recently published study from the Pew Internet & American Life Project and comScore. The comScore data show a jump from 49.3 million daily search engine users in September 2004 to 60.7 million in September 2005 (23%). The study also found that search engine...
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