Guest Column For the Times UK
By admin | February 28, 2009
When times are bad, click on a cup of tea
Close analysis of internet searches shows how we really react to events like the global downturn
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New Click Column in the Wall Street Journal
By admin | February 21, 2009
I’ve started a new column that will appear regularly in the Wall Street Journal (online at WSJ.com). Here’s my first piece on Hulu.com.
In “Alec in Huluwood,” Hulu.com’s first-ever Super Bowl TV spot, Alec Baldwin describes how the streaming video site, a joint venture between NBC Universal and News Corp., will allow television to fully, finally succeed in turning our brains to mush.
It’s debatable, of course, whether online episodes of “Family Guy” and “Colbert” rot our crania more, or faster, than quick-hit clips of dramatic chipmunks and skateboarding cats. But this much is clear: The two kinds of video owe their success to two very different demographic groups of viewers.
When you look at the audience of well-known Web 2.0 properties like YouTube, Facebook, MySpace or Twitter, their rapid adoption was fueled by 18- to 24-year-olds. At YouTube’s launch in late 2005, more than 50% of its site visitors were 18- to 24-year-olds.
This was not the case with Hulu.com. When the company launched its public site last March, the largest age group visiting the site were those Internet visitors over 55 years old, accounting for 47% of all site visits, while traditionally younger early adopters accounted for only 17% of traffic.
It later became clear that what first appeared to be a data anomaly was the result of Hulu.com’s very Web 1.0 launch strategy, which used articles in the New York Times and other newspapers to attract viewers. As a result, after its release in October 2007, more than 20% of Hulu’s traffic came from newspaper Web sites. The largest age demographic for visitors to print news Web sites is older Internet users over the age of 55.
By comparison, when YouTube launched in late 2005, traffic from print news Web sites accounted for less than 0.5% of its traffic. One of YouTube’s largest sources of traffic at launch was from Web-based email services, at 19%, as its early adopters forwarded their favorite clips to their network of friends.
Of course, it wasn’t just the launch strategy that attracted older viewers to Hulu. The content on Hulu — primarily network television shows from NBC and Fox — was already in the sweet spot of the so-called Greatest Generation.
Still, in its first months Hulu.com experienced slow ramp, hovering around the No. 20 position of online video sites during the first weeks of public availability in March 2008. In the last six months Hulu.com’s visits have accelerated, reaching its high point in visits immediately following Sunday’s commercial. On Monday, Feb. 2, it garnered 2.5% of all visits to the category, claiming the No. 4 position behind YouTube, Google Video and MySpace Video, according to Hitwise.
In its current position, Hulu is still playing catch up to YouTube, which captures nearly 10 times the amount of traffic. However, search term data reveals that Hulu may have an advantage over YouTube. Of the top 20 search terms entered into YouTube’s site search, 15 were seeking broadcast and cable television content in the form of music videos, movie trailers and episodes of “Family Guy,” a Fox animated sitcom, content that Hulu has license to stream. YouTube often carries similar clips, but without a content license they are subject to removal based on the content owner’s request.
Nearing the one-year anniversary of its public launch, Hulu’s age demographics have begun to normalize with 25- to 34-year-olds taking over as the largest age group, with 29.2% of all visits signaling that Hulu may be entering its mass adoption phase. For the month of January 2009, on a percentage basis, Hulu had a stronger base of 25- to 44-year-olds, when compared to YouTube, while 18- to 24-year-old YouTube users outnumbered Hulu’s by two to one.
If Alec’s assertion on “Huluwood” is true, that Hulu has brought us to the convergence of television and computer, then the future success of online video may have less to do with the 18- to 24-year-old viral network effect and more to do with the power of traditional media players.
Reprinted from the Wall Street Journal
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Dancing with the Stars - Right Again!
By admin | November 26, 2008
Mark us down for another reality television show prediction. Yesterday we posted that Brooke Burke (despite a significant Stacy Keibler Correction Coefficient) would win dancing with the stars. As many of you noticed however, I accidently left Lance Bass off of the final chart. Here’s a corrected chart:
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Dancing with the Stars - Season 7
By admin | November 25, 2008
I’ve had a number of requests to apply the arbitrage/prediction model we discussed in Click for the season finale of Dancing with the Stars this evening. First a chart of searches on the remaining contestants:
Television host/personality Brooke Burke has maintained a consistant lead in searches over the course of the season, but lets not forget the infamous Stacy Keibler Correction Coefficient that caused an incorrect prediction in the second season of the show.
Sure enough, adding to the complexity of our prediction is the fact that Burke has posed for Playboy, filling top search terms with requests for “Brooke Burke Hot Photos” and “Brooke Burke Nude.” Surprisingly, teen Hannah Montana heartthrob Cody Lindley has some SKCC searches such as “Codey Lindley shirtless” clouding his search term popularity. Footwork challenged Warren Sapp, whose popularity has surged over the last week is clear of any Keibleresque search term.
Unfortunately, only 50% of DWTS final results are attributable to viewer popularity, the rest is in the hands of the judges, who arguably are scoring based on dance merit. Despite the SKCC issues, based on her search popularity and consistantly high judges scores, I’m calling this one in favor of Brooke Burke.
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Lipstick and the Narrative Fallacy
By admin | November 25, 2008
One of my favorite recent books is Nassim Taleb’s Black Swan. While reading the book last year, I was struck by a point that Nasssim made regarding the narrative fallacy, or our inclination as analysts to only look at data in the light of our chosen hypothesis (highlighting data that makes our point and ignoring data that might be in opposition to our argument).
Just recently I decided to take a look at the “Lipstick Theory,” the idea that in tough economic times purchases of affordable luxuries like lipstick can increase, a theory espoused by Leonard Lauder the charman of Estee Lauder Companies.
Of course a quick chart of “lipstick” searches was in order. To my surprise, there was a massive spike that coincided perfectly with the Wall Street debacle. Unfortunately my joy at confirming the Lauder theory was short lived, a quick check of where searchers were going after searching on “lipstick” revealed that they weren’t proceeding to online retailers but rather the political category. The most popular variation of lipstick searches during the spike “Lipstick on a pitbull”.
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Wall Street Troubles and Internet Behavior
By admin | September 29, 2008
Several weeks ago I had the pleasure of sitting down with Maurna Desmond at Forbes to discuss Hitwise data and what light Internet behavior might shed on our reaction to the Wall Street crisis. In preperation for our interview (you can view the video here), Maurna had an interesting idea. What if we narrowed our view of online behavior to the richest U.S. Internet visitors, has their behavior changed over the last year. Indeed, if we look at Claritas PRIZM segment #1, the Upper Crust (most affluent segment in the U.S.) one year ago was acting as we’d expect online, visiting their stock portfolios. Interestingly, when we did the same analysis as of one month ago, stock portfolios were at the bottom of the list for this same segment.
Our data was telling us that this affluent segment was visiting diversionary sites like celebrity blogs and game sites rather than visiting their shrinking portfolios.
In preparation for my Interview on NPR’s Talk of the Nation last week, I learned another interesting facet to our data, search terms containing “portfolio” and “login” were on the increase. It seems that many of us, facing the gloomy news from the center of our financial universe were once again interested in viewing our portfolio. Based on the term patterns though, it appears many of us have been away so long, we forgot how to log-in.
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Click Across America Contest
By admin | September 3, 2008
New authors can pick-up some weird habits. Specifically, we obsessively check our Amazon rankings, and also have the urge to drop into every conceivable bookstore in our path to look for book copies and how they’re displayed. This evening I received an email from my brother-in-law Jonathan who noticed copies of Click at Book Passage in the San Francisco Ferry Building and snapped the picture below.
After seeing Jonathan’s snapshot, I decided to include everyone in my new obsession. If you see Click in your local bookstore, snap a shot with your camera/phone, post the picture to your favorite site and send me the URL (along with the store where you found Click) in the comment section here. I’ll repost the pictures here. The best pictures of the bunch will get a free signed book.
You can also email your pictures to bill@billtancer.com.
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The Baby Names Conundrum
By admin | September 3, 2008
I had a great radio interview this afternoon with Krys Boyd on NPR affiliate KERA in North Texas. During the call Krys asked if I had any unsolved mysteries and I mentioned the baby names chart. While the spikes have dissipated since I first drew this chart two years ago, there are still some dramatic traffic increases. Any ideas on what caused these spikes?
Here’s a comment from Jessica who responded before I could get this chart posted.
I heard your interview on Think from NPR. You mentioned the odd spikes in baby name searches. I have a couple suggestions that might help you. Women find out the sex of the their baby in their second trimester. They may also be looking for names at the end of their pregancy, in anticipation of the delivery. I would also consider the first month of pregnancy since women find out they are pregnant within 4 weeks of conception. So I would plot the spikes in births and then count back one month, 4 months, and 7 months. Don’t forget, births spike after a major event, such as a natural disaster, 9/11, or a major war. I hope this helps.
Topics: Uncategorized | 3 Comments »
Sara Palin “Hot Photos”
By admin | September 3, 2008
This week’s Science of Search column in TIME demonstrates how search term data can illuminate what really interests us in the presidential compaign (this particular column, as of today is the most read story on the TIME site). Check out the column here.
Topics: Uncategorized | 6 Comments »
More Reviews (TIME and USAToday)
By admin | September 3, 2008
Check out the latest reviews of Click that were posted this week in TIME and on USAToday.
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