Online Search Analytics Provide a Window Into Customer Behavior

Online searching is a proxy for consumer behavior. By examining how people search and what they're searching for, insurance companies can figure out better ways to connect with potential customers. Understanding how and when consumers are using the Web to look for information will help drive growth and help insurance companies navigate the next year.

Could the stars be aligning for a Google-N.Y. Times merger?

As the New York Times Co. is negotiating with lenders over its debt, speculation has been floating around the blogosphere, pushing the premise that Google Inc. should acquire the beleaguered Gray Lady. The thesis (or, rumor, as some would put it) has been around since the beginning of the year, with SpliceToday on Thursday reintroducing the idea of the unorthodox union of the stalwart of old media with the scion of new media.

Al Gore sits in Google's Board of Directors. I hope Google makes him publisher of the NYT.

Open Left is running a personal paid media campaign to support Democratic congressional candidates. I think it is a great idea and one that should be adopted by supporters of Medicare for All.

Recent searches on terms such as single payer, HR 676, Medicare for All, John Conyers, and HCAN reveal no paid search. That means all those terms can be bid on for very little money. AHIP has one sponsored link, but no advertising.

So, in the unlikely event that any of our readers are feeling plump in the pocket, you could bid on any of those terms and link to Corrente Wire HR 676. Thus increasing awareness and the influence of this little blog.

Washington Post

According to AdGooroo and SpyFu, among the thousands of terms purchased to send people to McCain Web sites are:

· "Hot wife," which linked to a biography of Cindy McCain.

· "Sarah palin pictures," which directed users to official campaign pictures.

· "Chavez" and "castro," which linked to a page advertising McCain's foreign policy.

· "Katrina" "against abortion," "global warming," "environmental pollution" and "gas prices," all tied to policy issues.

Hot wife?

Censored by Google Alerts - Crossed Crocodiles on AFRICOM

3quarks brings us the sad tale of another loss for the French. This time, it seems ils tout seul le font when it comes to search engines.

The war waged by French president Jacques Chirac against “Anglo-Saxon” cultural imperialism suffered a blow today when the Germans announced they were pulling out of a rival European search engine to Google.

Earlier this year Mr Chirac announced a series of ambitious technological projects designed to challenge the global dominance of the US. They included Quaero, a Franco-German search engine whose name is Latin for “I search”, but which was swiftly dubbed “Ask Chirac”.

Today German officials confirmed they were abandoning the €400m (£270m) project. Senior officials in Germany’s economics and technology ministry said they had decided to dump Quaero because they had been sceptical it would ever be able to challenge the might of Google and Yahoo!

Sarah’s simple proposal got me thinking and I came across an article in which Marshall Sponder asks:

Now, the only thing I really question is why Eric Schmidt is telling this stuff to Republican Governors - isn't he supposed to be neutral?   Read more…

Think Progress has the transcript:

HOST: I’m curious, have you ever googled anybody? Do you use Google?

BUSH: Occasionally. One of the things I’ve used on the Google is to pull up maps. It’s very interesting to see — I’ve forgot the name of the program — but you get the satellite, and you can — like, I kinda like to look at the ranch. It remind me of where I wanna be sometimes.

Readers, do any of you have suggestions for what Bush should Google?

Because I like beating dead horses:

What’s at stake? Over the years, Google has collected a staggering amount of data, and the company cheerfully admits that in nine years of operation, it has never knowingly erased a single search query. It’s the biggest data pack rat west of the nsa, and for good reason: 99 percent of its revenue comes from selling ads that are specifically targeted to a user’s interests. “Google’s entire value proposition is to figure out what people want,” says Eric Goldman, a professor at Silicon Valley’s Santa Clara School of Law and director of the High Tech Law Institute. “But to read our minds, they need to know a lot about us.”

I know, I know, it's all about the money. But this doesn't make me happy:

SAN FRANCISCO - Internet search leader Google is snapping up YouTube for $1.65 billion, brushing aside copyright concerns to seize a starring role in the online video revolution.

I've got a lot to do today, forgive the grab bagging. Pensions: do you have one? I honestly can't tell if this bill is a good thing or not, but since Bush signed it, I'm inclined to think it will make things worse.

Sigh. But does anyone listen to me? No. People, the term is "dogpile" and while I'm not vouching for them as the liberal alternative, as far as I know, they aren't doing this:

Google is "eager" to work with the Republican Party and has boosted its presence in Washington, D.C., according to Roll Call.

I think the political benefit of such an arrangement is that in the future, most "libraries" will be corporate for profit access havens. Information there will be organized to meet certain interests, and that methodology won't calculate ours. But for now, it looks interesting. A fun project would be for someone to go over Google's material, while comparing it with old school microfiche of the same material.

Web giant Google is further expanding its online empire with the launch of the Google News Archive Search.
The web-based tool allows users to explore existing digitised newspaper articles and more recent online content, spanning the last 200 years.

Sure, it's just a prototype. But still.:

The idea is to use the existing PC microphone to listen to whatever is heard in the background, be it music, your phone going off or the TV turned down. The PC then identifies it, using fingerprinting, and then shows you relevant content, whether that's adverts or search results, or a chat room on the subject.

And, of course, we wouldn’t put it past Google to store that information away, along with the search terms it keeps that you've used, and the web pages you have visited, to help it create a personalised profile that feeds you just the right kind of adverts/content. And given that it is trying to develop alternative approaches to TV advertising, it could go the extra step and help send "content relevant" advertising to your TV as well.

For that, the solution is simple: Turn off your teevee. (Or tape over the mike (or throw "chaff" at the system with other noise)).

But this won't stop with the teevee, will it?

This is good news, I think. Correct me if I'm reading this wrong. It's both depressing and heartening to realize that in the end, this battle is all about which large corporation has the most money and lawyers.

SOFIA (Reuters) - Google warned on Tuesday it will not hesitate to file anti-trust complaints in the United States if high-speed Internet providers abuse the market power they could receive from U.S. legislators.

The U.S. Senate Commerce Committee last week approved sweeping communications reform legislation that would make it easier for telephone companies like AT&T to offer subscription television to consumers.

But it narrowly rejected attempts by some lawmakers to strengthen safeguards on Internet service, which had pitted high-speed Internet, or broadband, providers such as AT&T against Internet content companies like Google.

Haven't really had a chance to look around this yet but My Spies tell me that you can find interesting stuff this way. On the surface it looks like a specialized form of their regular Google News, but one Spy says he found a whole subset of one agency that isn't listed on the said agency's website. Poke around and see what you can find:

Google US Government Search