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Click: What Millions of People Are Doing Online and Why it Matters |  | Author: Bill Tancer
Publisher: Hyperion
List Price: $25.95
Buy New: $6.91
as of 3/22/2010 04:03 CDT details
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New (7) Used (12) from $4.09
Seller: dumbdealz
Rating:  68 reviews
Sales Rank: 123328
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 240
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.1 x 0.9
Dewey Decimal Number: 006.312
ASIN: B0023RSZJQ
Publication Date: September 2, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
What time of year do teenage girls search for prom dresses online? How does the quick adoption of technology affect business success (and how is that related to corn farmers in Iowa)? How do time and money affect the gender of visitors to online dating sites? And how is the Internet itself affecting the way we experience the world? In Click, Bill Tancer takes us behind the scenes into the massive database of online intelligence to reveal the naked truth about how we use the Web, navigate to sites, and search for information--and what all of that says about who we are. As online directories replace the yellow pages, search engines replace traditional research, and news sites replace newsprint, we are in an age in which we've come to rely tremendously on the Internet--leaving behind a trail of information about ourselves as a culture and the direction in which we are headed. With surprising and practical insight, Tancer demonstrates how the Internet is changing the way we absorb information and how understanding that change can be used to our advantage in business and in life. Click analyzes the new generation of consumerism in a way no other book has before, showing how we use the Internet, and how those trends provide a wealth of market research nearly as vast as the Internet itself. Understanding how we change is integral to our success. After all, we are what we click.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 68
 A lost opportunity... March 11, 2010
Raj Dhawan (San Francisco)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
As a Manager at HitWise looking at user data on Search Engines, Bill Tancer has a very powerful and interesting job...studying and analyzing what people are doing on the Internet.
Some of what Bill has to say is indeed interesting and will surprise many of us. Like Celebrity gossip attracts more eyeballs that almost any other news or event. Wow !
But that also brings me to my main gripe about this book. I feel the author has wasted his book on meaningless analysis of data. If the data had been more intelligently analyzed, and written from a reader's perspective that how can I learn and benefit from this data, it would be a much better book. Its like having backstage passes to the biggest show in the world, and talking about Paris Hilton. Meh !!!
Interesting. Somewhat dated. January 9, 2010
Carel Miske (Nevada)
It's a quick read and has some interesting data in it. Other than some basic demographic and psychographic information on key groups of internet users, it does not provide information that would be of much use in marketing or business planning. It's sort of a trivia book that lacks any startling or memorable data. For example, the author deals at several points with the concept that men tend to be more visually oriented than women. It also covers the fact that our search patterns reveal things about us that we might not admit to openly even to a close friend, relative, or a marketing survey. If these last two concepts are startling to you, then you would find the rest of this book fascinating and cutting edge.
It, of course, ignores completely the Orwellian nature of the collective data mining that is part of the current internet environment (and provided the data for this book). Although not intended by the author, if you have limited knowledge of how very "Big Brother" the internet has become in the name of marketing, this book may serve as a somewhat gentle eye opener to the current state of internet privacy.
 A sub standard advertorial for Hitwise and the author himself December 21, 2009
ServantofGod
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
For those who have no idea of what Hitwise (an agency specialized in online research) is, this can be a good introduction. For those who want to read a good pop/social science book like those of Freakonomics, Outliers etc. with analytical logics and insights, you would very likely to be disappointed. The author had overstretched his elaboration of how he reached his few, piecemeal and insignificant findings. Even worse, his writing and presentation skill is substandard. It's been a big waste of the excellent raw material uniquely available to the author. In short, not recommended.
Stories about Human Behavior using Search Data October 24, 2009
Christina Dulitz
I would categorize "Click" by Bill Tancer with "Freakonimics", et al - an easy read filled with interesting examples that may get the reader thinking about the topic in a new way, but not a how-to or a rigorous analysis.
Hitwise, the company Tancer works for, has a "sample of more than 10 million Internet users in the United States, and the database is an anonymized and aggregate collection of what this massive group of Internet users do online everyday." The book chronicles some of the analyses Tancer has done with that data.
I couldn't decide if the book was an opportunity for Tancer to show off /an infomercial for Hitwise (which makes its data, used for competitive intelligence or search intelligence, available for a fee) or if Tancer is so enthusiastic about the topic that he can't contain his excitement. Even if you view it as an infomercial, it's an informative and entertaining infomercial.
Part 1 of the book is "Understanding Ourselves", a collection of anecdotes of what he's done with the data. Some are straightforward (after a (later discredited) news story that the elementary school Obama had attended was a madrassa, searches for Obama doubled and the top 10 search terms for Obama shifted to include more terms referencing his religion and Islam). Others are more involved - the example of `prom dress' being a highly searched term in January, even though prom isn't until March or April, is a common thread throughout the book. (Minor spoiler alert - `prom dress' searches peak twice - once earlier in the year, when prom-focused, fashion-forward teens begin researching their prom outfits and closer to prom when more utilitarian teens scour the web for deals on dresses.)
Part 2 of the book is "What's Possible with What We Know" to explore "actual and theoretical uses of this data". Perhaps I wanted too much from this section, but I was disappointed. As an example, Tancer predicts the winners of reality tv shows. After initially using raw search volume to determine popularity (which resulted in him predicting a leggy former female wrestler would win, although she eventually placed third), he began using search volume along with searcher intent (searchers who clicked into videos of female wrestlers were likely not searching on that contestant because they thought she was the best dancer). A good learning point, but not the "wow, you can do *that*?" example I was hoping for.
If you are interested in data-backed stories about human behavior, I recommend this book. If you are looking for more rigorous analyses or something you can use directly in your own business, I do not.
 The best book on internet searching to date September 14, 2009
Bojan Tunguz (Greencastle, IN USA)
In recent years there has been a deluge of books that deal with the amazing ways that Internet has been changing our lives and the important insights that we have acquired about ourselves from this powerful new platform. And yet, most of these books leave something to be desired. They rarely go beyond what can be gleaned from the headlines by any above-average curious person. Oftentimes they focus too much on extraneous details of the life cycles of internet companies, and neglect to shed much light on what really goes behind the scenes that makes these companies so successful. This is primarily the function of the perception, real or imaginary, that the most valuable commodity that these companies have are in fact their unique insights and research, and the people in the know try to guard this information like the family jewels. With that in mind, Bill Tancer's book comes as a breath of fresh air. It is up to date with the latest thinking and research on online data mining and search strategies, and presents information that is not obvious or necessarily intuitive. He is a veteran of the field with years of experience with companies like HitWise that are at the very forefront of search technologies. He provides valuable and often hard to come by insights into how search companies try to measure and make sense of users' online behavior. Many of the examples in the book, like the searches for the contestants on the popular reality shows, are very contemporary and of interest to wider audience. Whether you are a geek with strong interest in all sorts of internet technologies, or just a curios ordinary web-surfer, this book will provide you with interesting and thought-provoking material.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 68
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