Category Archives: Behavior & Psychology

This is Not Your Kid’s Social Network: Leveraging LinkedIn

The worlds of social networking and search are beginning to blur more and more. And the number of influencers that are networking is higher than you might think. It’s not all about MySpace, but in many cases, contact networks like LinkedIn. New research from KnowledgeStorm and Universal McCann shows these seemingly contradictory findings:

“Seventy seven percent of B2B technology buyers have little to no familiarity with social networking online. Of the 24% who are very accustomed to social networks, a large majority of the respondents visit these sites at least once a month.

70% of B2B technology buyers use social networking sites for business networking and/or development, though 59% admit to also using these sites for personal reasons.”

So if 77% don’t know what social networking is, but 70% use them, what’s going on? I think it comes from many people not knowing that having a LinkedIn or Plaxo network actually counts as social networking. They’re participating, but they don’t know it. When they think social networking, they’re thinking about teenagers spending hours on MySpace or Second Life.

And at 70% usage, it’s a channel worth paying some attention to. Luckily, Guy Kawasaki recently engaged Kay Luo and Mike Lin at LinkedIn to brush up his profile. Check out the results of Guy’s Profile “Extreme Makeover”.

ChaCha and the Search Tango

There’s a new crop of search interfaces coming out, many spin offs from the big engines themselves, and I’ll be trying to take a look at them from the user’s perspective. Today I took ChaCha for a spin. Here’s some background (and hype) from their About page

“ChaCha stands out as different and better in a landscape cluttered with common search engines because it uses the World’s most powerful technology – The human brain.

ChaCha’s goal is to provide a better search experience by combining results that are hand-picked by our knowledgeable human guides with the best computer-generated search results. In those cases where you can’t find what you need with our instant results, ChaCha will connect you with a live human guide who will find the information for you through an instant messaging-style search session.

Scott Jones and Brad Bostic, two dynamic entrepreneurs who were not satisfied with millions of irrelevant search results provided by first generation search engines, believed a better experience could be created by tapping into human intelligence. Since starting ChaCha, they have been hard at work with the ChaCha team to create:

  • A smart search engine that “learns” by tapping into human intelligence so its results are always improving
  • A place to find exactly what you’re looking for instantly
  • Help from people who are knowledgeable about the very thing you are looking for when instant results don’t have the answer “

Fellow Enquiro blogger Marina Garrison tried out Cha Cha and shared her thoughts. Here are mine. Unfortunately, there’s no good news here for the Cha Cha team.

“A Better Search Experience”

I started out by looking for hotels in Kauai. I used the default, automated search. At the same time, I did a search on Google for the same query. My intent was to compare my options, so I was looking for a link that would show me a number of properties. Google did pretty well, with both official and unofficial accommodation guides rounding out the top algorithmic results returned in the customary fraction of a second. Definitely something here I would click on.

Cha Cha’s automated results were far less satisfying.

  chachaorigsm

First, there was a sponsored link at the top, but no advertiser. That’s okay, it’s a beta, so I didn’t really expect one. But all the other results have a “sponsored by” line at the bottom. I’m confused. Are they sponsored links or not? Confusion is not good in a user experience. The results were mostly for individual properties, not very descriptive, and the same site showed twice in the top 4 results. The only guide I saw was well down on the top 10, and it wasn’t an official guide. The results weren’t really matched to my intent. Strike Two.  Once again, what was it that Cha Cha was offering?

“ChaCha’s goal is to provide a better search experience by combining results that are hand-picked by our knowledgeable human guides with the best computer-generated search results.”

Oh..right. Okay, maybe I’ll try the “knowledgeable human guide” because after all, “it uses the World’s most powerful technology – The human brain”

I hit the search with guide button

The interface changed and opened up a pane on the left. There was a pause of at least 10 seconds while I waited to connect with a guide. In 10 seconds on Google, I’d have clicked off the page by now, but I’ll be patient. Finally I’m connected to DelaineL, who greeted me with a “Good Afternoon”. This despite I did this at 10 am local time. Hmmm..mental note for Scott and Brad, our “dynamic entrepreneuers”…you’ll have to work out that time change thing.

Now, I wasn’t sure what to do. Do they just pick up from the last query I did? There were no instructions I could see. I waited. Finally DelaineL sent me a “Hi!”. I guess I have to reenter my query in the message box. We’re approaching a minute now. I told Delaine (not sure whether this is a male or female Delaine) I was looking to compare hotels in Kauai. I wanted to be fair, giving my human guide a chance to give me the types of results I was looking for.

“Find exactly what you’re looking for instantly “

I was expecting a page of 10 results to pop right up. Instead, after many more seconds, I got one.

chacha1sm

And it was for the same site that showed up twice in the top 4 organic results. This was the best that the “world’s most powerful technology” can do?  Also, the page they sent me was actually a landing page built for a Google Adwords campaign. Not really what I was looking for. So, was this the only result I was going to get? I asked my guide. I was told the second result was loading. When it came up, it was an Expedia search results page, along with an apology for the delay and the assurance that Delaine was looking for the most relevant results. The response sounded suspiciously canned though.

chacha2sm

I guess that’s what took the time, the guide went to Expedia and launched the search for me. I guess that’s good.

“People who are knowledgeable about the very thing you are looking for “

Okay, I’m sure Delaine is an excellent person, kind to kids and animals, and is probably an expert in many areas, but what makes him/her an expert on Kauai? How does Delaine know what I was searching for? Does ChaCha have a room full of people monitoring my initial search activity, and when I click on the guide button, a red light starts flashing and an announcement rings out at Cha Cha Headquarters, “Attention, we need a Kauai Expert on seach 1045..Stat!!” ? I somehow doubt it. Lets put the “knowledgeable” line down to more marketing spin.

Also, do we really want a human somewhere knowing what we’re searching for? I don’t think so. Most of us prefer to search anonymously, or at least what we think is anonymously (ignorance is bliss in this case, until we’re rudely awoken by a AOL debacle). I suppose if someone were really stuck, they would try their luck with a search guide, but based on my experience, it wouldn’t be something I would ever do again.

By this point, I had spent a good 2 or 3 minutes doing something that would take a few seconds on Google, and I didn’t get results any better than I would have received there. Sorry ChaCha, but you hit a sour note with me.

And now I go on my user experience diatribe. There’s obviously a lot of infrastructure behind Cha Cha. I have no idea how many human guides they have but to make this scalable (they say thousands), but it appears that they’re paid by the search. This is not a cheap start up. But this will undoubtedly fail. It offers no compelling reason to use it. It’s far inferior to other options that have established themselves with users. A little bit of research should have shown this. I’ve talked to a few people who have used it. None of them will ever use it again. I’m sure the people at ChaCha will say they had tremendous response from their initial tests. BS. If thats the response they got, they weren’t doing the tests correctly. This will be a waste of a lot of people’s time and some significant investment on somebody’s (apparently Jeff Bezos) part. And it could have been avoided with proper usability testing. There’s a lot wrong with ChaCha, and not much right. The interface is junky and clunky. It’s like a flashback to the dot com bubble.

If you’re going to Cha Cha, try not to step on your partner’s toes. I’m still limping.

Postscript

After the post, I ran across Rob Garner’s SearchInsider column from yesterday (obviously have to clean out my folders more often) on his experience with ChaCha. While not ideal, it seems Rob is more optimistic than I am:

“I would bet that they find a niche in the market with a loyal user base, and that we may see more innovation from them to come in the form of user interface, and/or behavioral research. “

I guess one thing ChaCha has going for it is the ability to get live user feedback, real time. I hope they listen.

Why No “Golden Triangle” in the Microsoft Eye Tracking Study

Over at Searchengineland, Danny Sullivan did a deeper dive into the Microsoft Eye Tracking Study that I posted about last Friday. In it, Danny said:

“Interesting, the pattern is different that the “golden triangle” that Enquiro has long talked about in its eye tracking studies, where you see all the red along the horizontal line of the top listing (indicating a lot of reading there), then less on the second listing, then less still as you move down. “

I just want to draw a few distinctions between the studies. In our study, we wanted to replicate typical search behavior as much as possible, so let people interact with actual results pages. In the Microsoft study, they were testing what would happen when the most relevant result was moved down the page and how searchers responded to different snippet lengths. The results, while actual results, were intercepted and were restructured in a way (i.e., stripping out sponsored ads) to let the researchers test different variables. We have said repeatedly that the Golden Triangle is not a constant, as is shown in our second study, but follows intent and the presentation of the search results.

In fact, the Microsoft study does confirm many of our findings, in the linear scanning of results, the scanning of groups of results and the importance of being in the top 5.

Another potential misconception that could be drawn from Danny’s interpretation of results is hard and fast rules about how many results searchers scan. He settled on the number five. When looking at eye tracking results, it’s vital to remember that there is no typical activity. Please don’t take an average and apply it as a rule of thumb. Averages, or aggregate heat maps, are just that. They’re what happens when you take a lot of different sessions, varying greatly, and mash them together. Scanning activity is highly dependent on the intent of the user and what appears on the search results page. A particularly relevant result in top sponsored, matched to the intent of the majority of users, would probably mean little scanning beyond the first or second organic result. On the other hand, if the query is more ambiguous, you could see scanning a lot deeper on the page. The Microsoft study used two tasks that would generate a limited number of queries, and recorded interactions based on this limited scope. Our studies, while using more tasks, still out of necessity represented the tiniest slice of possible interactions.

After looking at over a thousand sessions in the past 2 years, I’ve learned first hand that there are a lot of variables in scanning patterns and interactions with the search page. An eye tracking study provides clues, but no real answers. You have to take the results and try to extrapolate them beyond the scope of the study. We spent a lot of time doing this when writing up both our reports. You try to find universal behaviors and commonalities, but you have to be very careful not to accept the results at face value. Drawing conclusions such as snippet lengths should be longer or that official site tags should become standard are dangerous, because it’s not true for every search. The study actually found that ideal snippet length is highly dependent on the task and intent of the user.

If anything, what eye tracking has shown me is the need for more flexible search results, personalized to me and my intent at the time.

Digital Voyeurism: The New Reality

I remember the first time I went to my local gym and saw a new sign, hastily hand drawn and posted, announcing that cell phones were no longer allowed in the change rooms. It took me a minute or two to get it, but I finally figured it out. Ahh..they come with cameras now.

There are two dimensions to this that I wanted to briefly explore. First of all, with digital cameras everywhere, businesses have to be more careful about the face they show to the public, because it’s likely that if their bad side is showing, there’ll be someone there to snap a picture. Consider the example of one Kohl’s store in Dallas.

kohls5_2A shopper visited the store in the post Christmas season, found a store that looked like a tornado just ripped through it and just happened to have a cell phone with a camera and a fairly well read blog. It gets worse. His post happened to catch the eye of Seth Godin, who has one of the most read blogs on the Web. The result? A PR nightmare for Kohl’s. And this can happen anywhere. The next time a character at Disneyworld alledgedly sucker punches a guest, you can count on a camera being nearby. It’s enough to make your average PR Director retire to a remote Caribbean isle, one without internet connections.

The second implication has to do with personal privacy. If there are pictures snapped of us, and they get posted to the web without our knowing, or our permission, what will the fall out be? They’re there for the whole world to see, through any one of a number of image search engines. Fellow SearchInsider David Berkowitz explores that in his column today:

“The overarching issue, the one that’s most likely to keep me up at night, is, “Do we have to entirely relinquish our right to privacy?” If the answer is yes, then it simplifies the issue. We press forward with every technological innovation, privacy be damned. We accept that everything we say can be recorded, and it’s not just to improve customer service.”

Smile..you’re on Candid Camera!

New Microsoft Eye Tracking Study

Microsoft has just released the results of an internal eye tracking study that looked at the impact of snippet length. For more detail, visit Marina Garrison’s blog where she looks at the notable findings.

msheatmapm

A few quick ones and some comments:

Snippet length doesn’t seem to impact people’s search strategies.

This makes sense to us. We found scanning for word patterns rather than actual reading. In fact, a longer snippet may actually detract from the user experience in certain scenarios, such as navigational search. It makes it more difficult to pick up information scent quickly. Remember, we’re on and off the search page as quickly as possible.

People scan 4 listings regardless

This is definitely aligned with the Rule of 3 (or 4) we found in our eye tracking study. We found, however, that this isn’t a hard and fast rule, but rather a pretty common tendency. It changes depending on whether top sponsored ads appeared, how closely aligned the top result was to intent and other factors. But in general, we would agree that most people tend to scan 3 or 4 listings before clicking on one.

Scenario Success Rates Dropped Dramatically as the “Best” Listing Moved Down the Page

No big surprise here. This was referred to in our first study as the “Google” Effect, and it comes from our being trained that best result should show up on top. I actually co-authored a paper with Dr. Bajaj and Dr. Wood at the University of Tulsa about this very topic. By the way, it was Dr. Bajaj that called it the “Google” Effect, not me, so please Yahoo and Microsoft, don’t beat me up on this one.

The report is available for download.

The Ultimate Market Research Technique?

sharingbrainThis is kind of cool, in a really creepy way. According to a recent study, Scientists can now tap into the brain and predict whether you’re going to buy something or not. Not to get all scientific on you, but apparently a portion of the brain called the nucleus accumbens “lights up” on a brain scan if you’re ready to whip out the plastic. But, if the price tag is out of your budget range, another region of the brain called the insula is activated and the mesial prefrontal cortex is deactivated. Dr. Brian Knutson of Stanford and his team are doing the research.

So, think of this future scenario:

Google gets wind of this and brings this into the Google Labs. They work with Intel to develop a small implantable chip that constantly monitors this part of the brain. Through a secret agreement with the U.S. Government, giving the Homeland Security teamaccess to everyone’s online history, Google gets the right to implant the chip in every new child born in the U.S. The chips are connected through wi-fi, so that Google can monitor everyone’s inclination to make a purchase. You can now test your Google campaigns right down to the purchase, setting up A/B tests with the ultimate feedback loop.

Mmm..the mind boggles with the possibilities here….

Most Shoppers Don’t “Shop Around,” at least Physically

A new study from the Grizzard Performance Group found that US Shoppers don’t have time to “shop around”, with 62% not bothering to compare prices at even two stores. However, they’re very open to saving money, right up to the time of purchase. It’s just that they don’t have the time.

This ties in with my previous post about real time inventory and e-shopping, currently being tested by a a few online services at malls and major chain stores. When we can quickly and conveniently check prices at a number of stores in our area through our handheld devices, trust me, shopping will change forever. And then, a whole new dimension of direct response marketing comes into play. Last minute pushes of discounts at the point of purchase, delivered through your mobile device. As the study by Grizzard indicates, consumers are very open to saving money on a comparable product, even if it wasn’t previously in your consideration set. So consider this. The shopping engine knows what you’re looking for, knows where you are, and knows what comparable products are in stock in the same store. The advertiser can purchase the right to push a message to you right at the point of purchase, offering you 15% off their product, or even offering an automated “match and beat” deal, where it automatically matches the price of whatever you’re buying, and takes a further 10% off. A store around the corner could do the same thing, making it worth your while to check out at least one more store. All these things could easily be handled by algorithms and pre-set pricing thresholds.

And what if we take the Priceline approach? You’re ready to buy, but before you do, you send an offer to stores in your area with what you’re willing to pay for a particular product. The store in question can then decide whether to accept your offer or not. It would be true consumer control. And the really ironic thing? It’s a whole bunch of sophisticated technology, but it brings us right back to old fashioned haggling over the price. Isn’t it fascinating that the more sophisticated the technology, the closer we get to how we used to shop a century ago?

A Day in the Life

First published January 4, 2007 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

The U.S. Census Bureau has just released its new statistical abstract. According to the study, here’s how the average adult or teen will spend his or her time in 2007:

  • 65 days in front of the TV;
  • 41 days listening to the radio;
  • A little over a week on the Internet;
  • A week reading a daily newspaper; and
  • Another week listening to recorded music.

I have just one question: Who the hell are these people? Nobody I know.

The Census Bureau was unavailable for comment on the findings, so I have to make some assumptions. I’m assuming that the Internet time includes any work-related activity. So I tallied up my time on the Internet, actively using it, and found I averaged about 4 hours a day. Granted, I’m not a normal user (in oh-so-many ways) but bear with me. That means I spend almost 2 months on the Internet in a year.

Okay, I represent an extreme, and I realize that. So how about my wife, Jill? She is above average in nearly every regard, but when it comes to Internet use, is probably a closer approximation of your garden-variety user. Jill spends about an hour-and-a-half online a day. That puts her at just over 3 weeks of surfing in a year. My kids? About two-and-a-half hours a day, the majority of that chatting with umpteen zillion friends simultaneously on Messenger and butchering the English language I love, but I digress. That’s about five-and-a-half weeks in a year.

Perhaps the whole Hotchkiss family is abnormal when it comes to using the Net. Who are the least Net-savvy people I know? My Mom and Dad. Even they spend a half hour a day online, which puts even them slightly higher than the U.S. average.

Let’s attack the question in a different way. Let’s put together a day in the life of this mythical average American. According to the statistical abstract, here’s how his or her day is spent:

4.27 hours watching TV

2.7 hours listening to the radio

And roughly a half hour each surfing the Net, reading a newspaper and listening to music

Let’s assume that this person gets an average of 7.5 hours sleep and spends another 1.5 hours eating. That leaves fewer than 7 hours a day to do everything else, including being gainfully employed (unless their job is actually watching TV). Into that basket would fall things like reading a book, going for a walk with your family, hitting the gym, cleaning up the house, going on a vacation and talking with friends. Something seems askew here.

So I’m left with two possibilities. Either I have a warped view of the world because everyone I know represents the extreme end of the spectrum, or the U.S. Census Bureau has its facts wrong. If it’s the former, that means there are people, somewhere, that are really dragging down our collective average by remaining comatose in front of the TV for the better part of a day. I knew they existed, I just didn’t know there were so many of them. And it can’t really be the second possibility, can it? I mean, when’s the last time you remember the government getting its facts wrong?

 

US Statistical Abstract: Time Well Spent?

The U.S. Census Bureau just released their new Statistical Abstact for 2007. In it, they predict the amount of time adults and teens will spend consuming media in various forms:

  • 65 days in front of the TV
  • 41 days listening to radio
  • A little over a week on the Internet in 2007
  • Adults will spend about a week reading a daily newspaper
  • Teens and adults will spend another week listening to recorded music
  • Consumer spending for media is forecasted to be $936.75 per person

What was interesting about this was noticing the gap that still exists between TV and Radio consumption and time spent on the Internet. To me, it’s indicative of the nature of engagement, at least for now.

According to these stats, we will spend 10X the amount of time in front of a television than we will spend in front of a computer cruising the Internet. The media release didn’t elaborate on the nature of time spent on the Internet. Does this mean work time as well?

Given these numbers, one can understand why the lion’s share of ad budgets still go to television, and I expect that TV sales execs will gleefully quote these given every possible opportunity. But consider the following:

  • The consumption of entertainment content online is in it’s infancy. Strike that, it’s actually embroyonic. If YouTube is the barometer of where we’re at, we have an immense way to go. All the hype about online video is still largely centered around viral growth amongst very early adopters who are watching amateur videos less than 3 minutes in length. It’s not the actual current  impact of online video that’s creating buzz, it’s the paradigm shifting that we have to do when we consider the democratization of content creation, the searchability of the digital format and the interactive possibilities that come with the online distribution channel.  All these things speak to a totally new experience. We’re just not there yet.
  • Think about the difference in your engagement level when you’re interacting with the Internet, as opposed to passively watching TV or listening to the radio. Think about how you respond to advertising messaging, especially when it’s relevant to the task you’re pursuing. The influence of this difference in engagement on consumers hasn’t been quantified yet, but at a gut level, we know it should be significant, probably a quantum leap in effectiveness. Actually, the numbers drive this home. In the research that’s been done on the impact of various channels on consumers, the Internet consistently ranks near the top, usually right after word of mouth, and much higher than television. And it has this impact with one tenth of the exposure time.
  • We need time to change our habits. Television watching has been ingrained in our daily routine for decades. Radio for a bit longer. Newspapers for centuries. The Internet is just celebrating its first decade as a widely accessible channel, and high speed access is less than 5 years old. Given that, the one week number is actually quite remarkable.

I’m sure these numbers will be quoted often, and spun in drastically different directions, depending on who’s doing the spinning. At first glance, my thought was “only one week?”. But as I thought about it, the numbers just emphasized the vast potential of online. What will be fascinating is to revisit this in a year’s time and see how these numbers change. In Internet terms, 12 months is an eternity.

A Sign of Things to Come: eShopping at a Store near You

A small article in the Wall Street Journal (a subscription is needed to read the whole article) is a precursor of a big shake up to come. It’s something I’ve been predicting for sometime now, and while it will take awhile to gain traction, it will turn local retail upside down.

Three malls in California and one in Arizona have agreed to allow shoppers to check prices on actual inventory through text messages from their cell phones with a service called NearbyNow. According to their site, NearbyNow plans to add another 17 malls throughout the US to their network by April. Another service called Slifter is focusing on national chains like Best Buy, CompUSA and Foot Locker.

Here’s why this is revolutionary and why you’ll be hearing more.

  • For shopping, this represents discontinuous innovation. It’s a big win for the user, allowing them to shop smarter than ever before. Consumer demand will drive adoption of this new approach.
  • For retailers, this is scary as hell. By allowing their inventory to be captured realtime, they’re agreeing to be compared side by side with everyone else, including online retailers with no physical overhead to drive up prices. It completely levels the playing field.
  • As a number of technologies improve and converge, this will become substantially more useful and powerful. Mobile computing, GPS and search functionality will make this a must have for consumers.
  • It completely fuses the online and offline worlds, making the transition seamless.

This is one of those ideas you just know will take off, but there’s going to be some significant hurdles to overcome. These services are only as good as their success at signing up merchants. The more stores in the network, the more successful. If only a few are included, consumers will always wonder if there’s a better deal that isn’t part of the service, defeating the purpose. And a number of retailers will resist this trend til the bitter end. Ultimately, it will be consumer insistence that will force the laggards to join.

Another challenge will be the user interface. Right now, both services run on cell phones, meaning you have to deal with an awkward keypad and stripped down display. But this problem will rectify itself with advances in mobile technology.

In the world of shopping, this changes everything.