FREEDyourMind

The Internet Presidency

As a technologist (or as others like to say, a closet tech geek) it is great to see the Obama administration embrace the Internet and technology.  I thought I would do my part. 

I wasn't able to watch the inauguration live -- far too busy of a day.  But on my drive home I wanted to get caught up.  Now my satellite radio provides me the most current news, and many different channel/station choices, but I wanted to hear his speech. I didn't want to wait until I got home and watch it on the DVR.

Hmmm... what could I do?

Well, I got out my trusty iPhone, accessed YouTube, clicked on the inauguration, and spent my ride home listening to his speech.  How is that for the use of technology!

So what other role will the internet play in this administration?  More on that tomorrow.

Good Reaction By President

If you haven't seen this story yet it is worth checking out.  President Bush shows pretty good quickness up there, I guess he is used to ducking things.  But the Secret Service seemed a bit slow getting up to the podium.  Check it out here.

Bad News In The Tech Industry

Just what we need, a log of bad news in the tech industry.  TechCrunch has a layoff tracker.  They are reporting 107,193 layoffs in the tech industry since August 27 of this year.  This includes 294 different layoffs across the industry.  And my guess is we have not yet seen the worst of it. 

There has been talk about the Obama administration's works program to put people back working rebuilding the infrastructure of this country.  But what about all those tech workers?  We will also need a government stimulus program that drives R&D in established technology companies and more support for emerging and start-up companies.

However, I am happy to report that at ForeSee Results we keep growing!.

Rewarding Customers That Find Mistakes

I was at a party recently where I was talking to a civilian (aka a non-web analytics guy) who, once he found out what I do, wanted to tell me about every bad website experience he'd ever had. One good/interesting experience he mentioned: he talked about a site he visited a year or so ago that gave out $10 gift certificates to customers who found broken links or messed up unicode on the website, or who gave the webmasters tangible and valuable information for building a better site.

I have no idea if this turned out to be a good business model for the company, but I thought the concept of turning your online customers into a vast usability network was an interesting one.

Of course, he didn't remember the company, so it clearly didn't make too much of an impression in terms of his loyalty to them.

Searching Google's Oldest Index

Oh, this is cool! In honor of their tenth anniversary, Google is giving us the ability to search their oldest available index from 2001. Meaning, you can go see what it would have looked like and what search results would have been before and during the absolute explosion of the internet.

Observations:

1. The page looks almost the same! How many online companies have made such minimal changes to branding and site appearance in ten years -- and been as succesful as Google has?

2. In 2001, Google bragged about indexing 1.3 billion web pages. Their index is now well over a trillion unique URLs, and growing by several billion every day. That's a thousandfold increase.

3. For fun, let's compare some search terms from then to now:

"Sarah Palin" in 2001: Your search - "sarah palin" - did not match any documents.
"Sarah Palin" in 2008: about 24,200,000 for "sarah palin"

"Barack Obama" in 2001: 672 for "barack obama".
"Barack Obama" in 2008: 80,400,000 for "barack obama"

"Michelle Obama" in 2001: about 43 for "michelle obama"
"Michelle Obama" in 2008: about 5,160,000 for "michelle obama"

kangaroos in 2001: about 84,300 for kangaroos.
kangaroos in 2008: about 6,240,000 for kangaroos

Iraq War in 2001: about 414,000 for Iraq war.
Iraq War in 2008: about 29,600,000 for iraq war.

"American Idol" in 2001: about 158 for "american idol"
"American Idol" in 2008: about 31,200,000 for "american idol"

"online customer satisfaction" in 2001: about 3680 for "online customer satisfcation"
"online customer satisfaction" in 2008: about 98,700 for "online customer satisfaction"

A search for "Wii" in 2001 turned up results for Willamette Industries and the Wildlife Institute of India. The same search in 2008 turned up results for, well, Wii.

4. Gene Weingarten, a nationally syndicated humor columnist for the Washington Post, coined the term "googlenope" meaning a search term that returns zero results. As soon as it is identified and written about online, it of course automatically becomes a "googleyup." Examples of googlenopes that were googlenopes until identified as such are "ferrari to produce minivan," "finger severed in blogging accident," and "I can't find a starbucks anywhere." You get the idea.

But in 2001, there were quite a few phrases that it's hard to imagine were ever googlenopes:

    * "dumb Paris Hilton" (0 hits in 2001; 971 hits in 2008--now 972!)
    * "fried chicken is healthy" (0 hits in 2001; 450 hits in 2008)
    * "Red Sox won World Series" (0 hits in 2001; ,640 in 2008)
    * "Washington Wizard Michael Jordan" (0 hits in 2001; 97 hits in 2008)
    * "social media websites" (0 hits in 2001; 52,200 in 2008).

5. I couldn't find any examples of things that actually have fewer results now than they did in 2001. I tried out-of-date technologies like VCRs, bankrupt companies like Polaroid, failed products like New Coke. But with a trillion web sites compares to a billion, it's almost impossible that anything would be mentioned less, even if NO ONE is talking about it anymore.

Can anyone find any examples of something that have fewer mentions now than it did 8 years ago?

Are Domain Names Not Intuitive Enough Already?

This is fascinating to me. Google has a tool in beta that allows you to see the top searches in the world (or by region) as well as which searches are gaining in popularity.

A few days ago I looked at the top 10 rising searches in the last 7 days? Eight of them are domain names:
1.       cnn          +50%
2.       you          +20%
3.       hi5           +20%
4.       google      +20%
5.       games      +20%
6.       firefox       +20%
7.       youtube    +10%
8.       you tube   +10%
9.       wikipedia  +10%
10.     orkut        +10%

Why would you go to www.google.com and then type in "google?" Why google "firefox" or "wikipedia" instead of just typing in "wikipedia" into your address bar?

I don't know what "you" is supposed to be. When I googled it, the sponsored result is YouTube. There's also a South African magazine called You. What caused the search term "you" to go up 20% in the last 7 days?

You can also search by region, so the top 10 news and current events search terms in the United States from the last 7 days are:

1.     news        
2.     msnbc    
3.     new york times    
4.     nbc    
5.     wall street journal    
6.     cnn    
7.     washington post        
8.     usa today        
9.     ny times        
10.     fox news

Again, all domain names that shouldn't need to be googled, except for the first one.

The top 10 searches in Michigan are:

1.     news    
2.     free press        
3.     detroit news        
4.     msnbc        
5.     free press detroit        
6.     freep        
7.     new york times        
8.     nbc        
9.     cnn        
10.     wall street journal

Whereas the too 10 searches from California are:

1.     news    
2.     msnbc    
3.     clarin    
4.     new york times    
5.     nbc    
6.     wall street journal    
7.     ole    
8.     noticias    
9.     la times    
10.     cnn    

What's interesting about the California list is that one (possibly two, I guess) of the top 10 search terms is in Spanish, which gives you a sense of just how many Spanish speakers there are in California.

I don't know what you actually DO with this tool other than play around with it. But it is interesting. I would have expected your average internet user to be savvy enough to type in msnbc.com instead of needing to do a google search for "msnbc." But I guess not.

The Facebook Generation Runs For Public Office

I was talking with a colleague last week about what will happen in, say, 2030, when both candidates for president grew up in the era of Facebook and MySpace? We were talking about the indiscretions we see on teenagers' Facebooks: when they post ridiculous quotes and pictures of themselves doing beer bongs, they aren't thinking that a future employer might see it, much less someone in 20 years who would splash it all over the New York Times when they're running for President or Senate or governor.

There's a guy in our office who went to high school with Madonna (as he often reminds us). He has her picture in his yearbook and everything. Imagine if he could claim that she friended him on Facebook and written on his wall.

The Onion needs to get on this: creating hypothetical Facebooks for McCain, Obama, Biden, and Palin, had they had social networking technology as teenagers. What groups would they have been members of? How many friends would they have had? Actually come to think of it, why stop there? Let's see Facebooks for George W. Bush (talk about beer bong photos!), Dick Cheney (all the personal info would be blank, and his hometown would be "undisclosed location"), Condi Rice, Bill Clinton (relationship status would always be set to "single")....someone could have a lot of fun with this.

Our London Office

I'm thrilled to formally announce the opening of our office in London along with the names of a bunch of clients we'll be working with in the UK, including 3M, Ask.co.uk, eBuyer, eHarmony, Harper Collins, Kellogg, McAfee, and Shopping.co.uk. You can read more in the press release on our website.

Neil Davis is our business development manager in the UK, and you can reach him at neil.davis@foreseeresults.com or 011-44-1403-25-8522.

We're already working with private companies and governments around the world, including in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Norway, Russia, all over the UK, and of course here in the United States.

We're also working with US-based companies in many other countries. A lot of companies want to compare satisfaction between all their English-language sites around the world or even among all their sites in all languages.

This office makes a great addition to the ForeSee team and continues the exciting growth we're experiencing!

Go Blue

Roadtrip!

I am off this morning with my 11 year old son on our way to South Bend to watch Michigan vs. Notre Dame and celebrate his birthday.  The two winningest football programs in America.  Great tradition from both schools.  It should be a great time, in spite of the 2 inches of rain they are predicting.

Two programs with great tradition and a great history of success.  Speaking of tradition, on my last trip to South Bend for a Michigan Football game, I got the chance to meet John Lattner, the 1953 Heisman Trophy winner - and I got to hold the Heisman.  A great thrill. 

Both programs are struggling a bit this year with limited expectations.  Sounds like many business in America today (fortunately not ForeSee Results where we continue to have great success and growth). 

Is there anything that business can learn from these football programs?  I recently read "Bo's Lasting Lessons: The Legendary Coach Teaches the Timeless Fundamentals of Leadership" by Bo Schembechler and John Bacon.  A great read, even if you are not a huge Michigan football fan.  There are many good lessons and when told by Bo, they take on special meaning.

In closing - GO BLUE!

And my prediction - Michigan 17 Notre Dame 10.

And if I am wrong, I guess I will have to just delete this post when I get back : ).

Don't Worry Hollywood - We Are Staying Right Here In Ann Arbor!

Last Friday, a huge film crew came out and spent the whole day at our office in Ann Arbor. It looks like we're going to be featured in print, television, and radio ads for the Michigan Economic Development Corporation's "Upper Hand" campaign with Jeff Daniels, touting what a great place Michigan is to live, work, and do business.  And it is!  From a great workforce that not only brings great skills but also strong loyalty; to great universities and football Saturdays in the Big House (Go Blue!); to a great quality of life.  The State of Michigan has been incredibly supportive of helping companies grow, right here in Michigan.

It was a lot of fun - a great crew of 30-40 people taking over our office and allowing us all to flirt with stardom.  But not to worry - we won't be leaving Ann Arbor for Hollywood anytime soon.  We are going to stick around and do what we know best.  Helping companies measure, manage and improve the satisfaction that visitors have with the website experiences.