Click here to watch a videoWhat 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 informationand 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 weve come to rely tremendously on the Internetleaving 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.
"Do Americans really spend that much time surfing porn sites? Which demographic visited Anna Nicole Smith's Web site most frequently? Who reads Perez Hilton? More than mere trivia nuggets, the answers to these questions define online behaviors among a varied mix of Internet users. Tancer, who leads global research at Hitwise, an online market research company, guides the reader through the search patterns among 10 million Internet users, challenging myths and making new discoveries about the psychology of consumers, illustrating that clicks speak louder than words and can reveal unspoken truths about individual drives that are not expressed via other forms of media. Everyone from marketing managers who want to know how much power social networking sites wield in the online market to political pollsters trying to decipher the disconnect between exit polls and election results would be advised to heed his research. Witty and invaluable in its insights, this book is destined to become a primer for online marketers and usability experts while shedding new light on the mindset and curiosities of the average Web surfer, i.e., your friends and neighbors."
--Publishers Weekly"Another juicy comparison: Bill Tancer's CLICK: What Millions of People are Doing Online and Why It
Matters is said to be the new Tipping Point."
--Library Journal
"Bill Tancer is the king of measuring online research. And online research is the main street of the new world.
Which makes Bill Tancer king of the world, or something like that."
--Stephen J. Dubner, co-author of
Freakonomics
"Tancer brings humor, clarity, and insight to the treads that are revealed by the ways we seek out and consume information on the Internet."
--Booklist
"Bill Tancer loves data, and he's not ashamed to say so. Click: What Millions of People are Doing Online and Why it Matters has real-life examples aplenty drawn from Tancer's work at Hitwise, plus anecdotes that detail his experiences as a speaker and/or attendee at various conferences and trade shows, where he encounters all
manner of data aficionados. He offers interesting, odd statistics (more than 20 percent of all inbox spam is
related to Viagra; online searches for "prom dress" peak in January, contrary to the April or May surge one
would expect) and shares the details of his questions to understand these phenomena. Tancer believes 'we can
learn more about ourselves through our Internet behavior,' and is enthusiasm for data-modeling is infectious.
(Really.) Here's a bit of data-modeling:
readers who liked Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point will enjoy this book,
too."
--Bookpage
"In an earlier era, the author would have been a pollster. Now, as the general manager of global research at
Hitwise, an online intelligence firm, he sifts through a database that reveals what more than 10 million
Internet users do every day. With this digital treasure trove, Tancer (who is also a columnist for Time.com)
can aid traders by gauging the marketšs direction on specific issues, as well as answer pressing questions such
as which day of the week is most popular for porn websites."
--Time
"Ever wonder what all of us millions are doing on the Internet, aside from spending money and wasting time?
Bill Tancer, who is 'the king of measuring online research,' has made a living of it. He not only reveals what
wešre searching for online (how to tie a tie beats out how to have sex, go figure) but why it should matter to
us in Click."
-San Antonio Express-News
"Using search-engine data from 10 million surfers, Tancer shares information about our aspirations,
insecurities, and curious diversions. (Three of the top 10 'how to' searches: how to tie a tie, how to have
sex, how to levitate. 'How to' queries make up 3 percent of all searches, by the way.) We want to be healthy
and look good, but Tanceršs data show that wešre often looking for a quick fix to our problems. (Searches to
help 'stop smoking' are often tied to pharmaceutical keywords.) With personal anecdotes and a dose of humor,
Tancer shows how much we can learn from a billion little mouse clicks."
--Psychology Today
"Search engines provide objective information -- and lots of it. Finding out how people search can lead to big
dividends for your company."
--Go, Air Tran In-Flight Magazine
