Google Trends for Market Research?
Although Google got a lot of press earlier this month when it introduced its “hot trends” function that identified the fastest growing search statements daily, I still much prefer the older
Google Trends to track the frequency of searches over time, and have recently been considering its value in helping discover new markets.
What I think is the most interesting is that on Google trends you can view results broken down by cities and regions. You can also choose what time period you’d like to see the trend graphed for. So, for instance, in the image here, the phrase “carbon trading” was searched most often in the city of Mumbai India, followed by Sydney Australia and then Delhi, India.This regional breakdown adds meaning and value. For instance, if you were thinking of entering the carbon trading market, and wanted a lead as to what parts of the globe are most attuned to this concept and where people are looking for more information, this could be potentially valuable information.
The best words and phrases to use on Google Trends would be those that are more “packed” with meaning (e.g. “sustainability”; “social networks”) and where you could reasonably presume that a search implies that it’s a hot topic/and or people are thinking about it, and/or there is some demand for learning more. You could do this for product names as well, of course. And combining words or phrases (via commas) could also be used to help ensure that the word/phrase is in the context you want: e.g. “social networks,” “web 2.0″
Keep in mind, though, that the trends site is what Google calls a “Google Labs” product which means that it’s still in an early stage of development and that you can’t really count on what you discover as a sure thing. But I still think it’s pretty neat to consider for possible leads as one more input when doing initial new market research
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Bizarre Internet Search Story in Today’s Times
This is pretty off topic, but this article (”The Nations Borders Now Guarded by the Net) published in the New York Times this morning really got to me.
Apparently, border guards are doing Internet searches to find information about people as they cross the border (here, a person from Vancouver) to find out if there is anything undesirable about the person coming in that should prevent their entry to this country. In the case written about this morning, a psychotherapist with no criminal record who wrote an article in a journal a few years ago about experimenting with LSD decades ago was confronted with the article, and then when he admitted writing it, he was told he could not come in. (!!!)
I don’t know where to start on commenting on this use of the Internet and doing research this way, –assuming the facts are correct in this story—and without even getting into the ridiculousness of the actual policy decision itself (if you admit you’ve used drugs decades ago and you cannot come in this country) but here’s what I think about this whole Internet search aspect of the story:
1. Doing an off the cuff Net search to do serious research on persons currently entering the border? Absurd.
2. Drawing broad conclusions about the character of a person based on their digital trail of what they wrote or was located on the Internet. Even more absurd! Jeffrey Rosen wrote about this problem in his books like The Naked Crowd and The Unwanted Gaze
3. Having the above two processes be acceptable national border policy? Amazingly absurd
If border guards’ Googling people’s names on their PC as they come across the border is going to be an accepted procedure policy on making judgements on people and who should be let in here or not, God help us all!
MarketResearch.com acquires TBI’s Profound
If you haven’t heard it yet, this is a very interesting development, and reported here in Information Today’s Econtent.
I’ll be posting some thoughts on the implications of this for business researchers and the market research industry shortly.
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FT.com’s company news section now FREE
The word from FT.com that its information page on companies is now free just came into my email box.
This can be a great source for international M&A activity, IPOs’ and more. The articles remain free for 24 hours after publication. To get to the free company information page from FT.com, link here.
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