Product Details

Publishers Weekly

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. (Sept.)

Kirkus Reviews

Unilluminating overview offers few new insights into how and why we use the Web. Tancer is the general manager of global research for Hitwise, which analyzes the web-browsing habits of ten million Internet users in the United States. Aggregated and analyzed, he asserts, this data "can reveal a great deal about society"-who American users are, what they're interested in and how those interests change and evolve over time. Unfortunately, his conclusions are intuitive and simplistic rather than surprising or complex. For example, it's hardly a revelation that Americans spend a lot of time looking at pornography, or that they might visit porn sites more frequently when they have free time on their hands, such as during the summer or over Christmas vacation. Nor is it remarkable that people are more likely to search for a particular celebrity by name after that celebrity has been arrested, had a baby or died. Tancer certainly delivers on the first part of his subtitle. He gives a broad sense of what people are doing online, from searching for porn and obsessing over celebrities to trying to lose weight and participating in social-networking sites. He's less capable when it comes to explaining why it matters that affluent teenage girls search for prom dresses in January, or that searches for quick-fix diets peak just after New Year's Day. The book includes plenty of data and year-old buzzwords-"today's age of texting, MySpace pages, and that old standby, email"-but few insights into what all that adds up to, or why anyone should care in the first place. Fails to address the significance of Americans' online habits. Agent: Melissa Flashman/Trident Media Group

• Table of Contents

Table of Contents