Here is a real shocker for you — people prefer to spend their time socializing, sharing, and learning with their peers MUCH more than they do buying things.

That sounds like a fairly simple observation of normal human behavior, but when you consider that these are actually the findings of an ongoing study by Ruder Finn on what motivates people to go online it makes for some very interesting extensions to that finding.

The ongoing research project I am referring to is the Ruder Finn Intent Index, and the results were recently published online in the form of an  interactive tool.  The tool is both aesthetically pleasing and user friendly.  With the exception of research analysts who love their spreadsheets, this approach of showing the data and insights gained is excellent.

Online Imitates Life …sort of

The findings suggest that more than twice as many people go online to socialize (82%) than to engage in business (39%) or to shop (31%).  The tool allows you to view the data for Men, Women, Youth, and Seniors but regardless of the segment variance they all show a significant preference for socializing, connecting, and learning over doing business or shopping online.  This large disparity is definitely newsworthy given that a large percentage of the value of the Internet is typically tied to online ordering/commerce in some form or another. Read the rest of this entry »

Hunch launched publicly on June 15th and showed Microsoft’s Bing what a real decision engine looks like.

Hunch is the brainchild of Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake, and is arguably the most intuitive of a new pack of startup companies that have zeroed in on the insight that many times when people use Google they are actually not searching for results …they are looking for answers.

Search Engine VS. Decision Engine

Where search engines like Bing fall short is when you have a question and need help making a decision and not just listed information ranked by keyword relevance. Read the rest of this entry »