|
The News – 02/15/01
News Flash: Sex Sells
One of the findings of a newly released two-year study by Alexa Research
is that the number one word people enter into search engines is “sex” (1 of
every 300 terms). Some things never change. Porn launched the VCR, and it’s
certainly fueling some of the growth of the Internet. People will be
people, and the social uses (if you can call porn social) of the Internet will
probably always be paramount.
Take my new favorite site: www.HotOrNot.com.
This
is a site for masochists and voyeurs. Normal folks (the masochists) put up
pictures of themselves, and site visitors (the voyeurs) rank their appeal
on a 10-point scale. Some people are obviously in it for a goof (http://www.hotornot.com/r/?eid=OYNREE&key=TPW).
Others
are probably unaware that someone has posted their picture (
http://www.hotornot.com/r/?eid=G8SZKL&key=HDA). Still others
really think they’re hot, and may be surprised at their ratings. Rolling
through the pix and observing the aggregate ratings does give you a bit of
an insight into the cultural norms, at least as far as men’s tastes go (I concentrated
on the women, and didn’t look at too many of the guys). Anybody in a
bathing suit is an 8 or a 9. The more provocative the pose, the higher the
rating. Asians seem to be rated lower than blacks or whites. Don’t be
heavy, or they’ll be cruel.
This site has been held up
as an example of Peer-to-peer computing (about which I am researching a
white paper; this is a totally business-related exercise!) but I don’t see
why. It’s an example of community, to be sure, but I don’t see any P2P
implications.
Anyway, the popularity of
this site (over 600 Million votes counted and 800,000 photos submitted) is
not surprising in the context of Survivor and Cops and the dozens of Fox
reality shows on TV. Like Chance the
Gardener, we like to watch. Americans are becoming fascinated with
watching reality. Witness the proliferation
of traffic cams and other location video cameras on the Net. There are
tremendous business opportunities in feeding this need for reality programming
on the Web. But are we headed toward a future where someone’s always
watching? I, for one, am not too comfortable with that prospect. Once all
the 7 Eleven security cams are net accessible, I’m not ever leaving my
house again.
Searching the Web a Problem for Many
Other findings from the
Alexa survey indicate that people are either lazier than anticipated, or
are finding it hard to navigate to sites they want. The survey found that in
a large number of the 42 million searches examined, the user merely entered
the name of a Web site rather than typing it into the browser’s address
bar.
Four
of the top 10 search terms sought by users in the study were Web site names
or addresses. Hotmail -- whether entered as "hotmail,"
"hotmail.com" or www.hotmail.com
-- was the second most popular term sought. Yahoo (including
"yahoo.com" and “www.yahoo.com") was third. EBay (including
"ebay.com" and "www.ebay.com") and AOL (including
"aol.com" and "www.aol.com") were ninth and tenth,
respectively. Also among the top 50 were Excite.com, AltaVista, Amazon.com,
and MSN.
Come on, people, work with
us here! How much harder is it to type the same stuff in the browser’s
address field? My feeling is that the users in question don’t know that
modern browsers (since about the 3.0 version of Netscape and MS Explorer)
don’t require you to type http:// at the beginning of a Web site address.
So they type the site name, wait for the search page to display, find the
site in the listing, and then click on the link to get there. All to avoid
typing seven characters.
Alexa Research has another
possible explanation:
"This study shows that for many, there's a
conceptual misunderstanding of how to effectively navigate the Web," said
Matthew Work, vice president of Alexa Research. "Some people think
that their homepage is the Web, that they have to go through their homepage
in order to get to the site they want, without realizing that any Web site
can be accessed directly. This notion is supported by our Web traffic popularity
rankings, where eight of the top 10 sites are portals and/or search
engines."
That I can believe, as
well. I’ve had people come to me and tell me, “The Internet isn’t working,”
when in reality there’s either a problem starting their browser, or the
browser can’t load their start page.
Whatever the reason, it’s
clear that folks are finding it hard to find things on the Web. Their
reliance on search engines to help them, when other methods like directly
entering the Web site name are available, indicates that businesses maybe
should put more emphasis on search engine placement, rather than
advertising their Web site names.
Cyberatlas
Return to Mike’s Take
|
.