<meta content="OpenOffice.org 1.9.129 (Linux)" name="GENERATOR" /><meta content="20061214;8231900" name="CREATED" /><meta content="16010101;0" name="CHANGED" /><br /> <style> <!-- @page { size: 8.5in 11in; margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } --></style> <p>I experimented with a new <a target="_blank" href="http://www.google.com/">Google</a> tool today called <a target="_blank" href="http://www.google.com/trends?q=&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all">Google Trend</a> and found some surprising trends in the computer industry.<br /> There seems to be a lot more momentum in the general media with laptops - characters on TV programs spend more time with laptops, the <a target="_blank" href="http://www.starbucks.com/">Starbucks</a> phenomenon, and other sightings - than desktops. So I was surprised after comparing desktop, laptop, and notebook personal computer search term trends - not much difference in people searching for these three items (to purchase or solve problems). So it doesn’t seem as if the “desktop is dead” like the popular media would suggest - at least based on interest. The other surprise was the difference between news site publications (“content”) and what people are looking for (“searches”). The content providers talk more about notebooks while the searchers are looking for laptops. So a good marketer (who uses Six Sigma techniques) should begin offering and advertising more laptop computers.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><img align="left" alt="search trend 1" title="search trend 1" src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/googlePCtrend.jpg" /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><meta content="text/html; charset=utf-8" http-equiv="CONTENT-TYPE" /><title /><meta content="OpenOffice.org 1.9.129 (Linux)" name="GENERATOR" /><meta content="20061214;8231900" name="CREATED" /><meta content="16010101;0" name="CHANGED" /><br /> <style> <!-- @page { size: 8.5in 11in; margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } --> </style> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in">Another trend I looked at was the activity surrounding a few large computer manufacturers. As can be expected, the search volume for <a href="http://www.ibm.com/us/">IBM</a> has been falling as <a href="http://www.lenovo.com/us/en/">Lenovo</a>, who purchased IBM’s desktop computer manufacturing business, has been entering the market with their own branded products. The surprising development though is how many more searches chase <a href="http://www.hp.com">HP</a> even while there is an increasing media content coverage of <a href="http://www.dell.com">Dell</a> (that hasn’t changed for consumers either up or down with the HP leadership struggles of late while Dell remains the consistent media darling).</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><img align="left" alt="search trend 2" title="search trend 2" src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/googlePCtrend2.jpg" /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in">If you’ve followed my previous columns you’ll remember the “ground truth” I watch for in people throwing out computer shipping boxes on trash day – last year it seemed to be more Dell and this year more HP products were received by consumer homes, at least with the statistically small sample size observed and in my specific area of the country (however, HP’s earnings were reported as being way up over last year indicating the micro picture may hold). So more real customers are searching for HP than Dell.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in">What about <a target="_blank" href="http://www.apple.com/">Apple</a> computer? Apple gets a lot of attention on sites like <a target="_blank" href="http://www.digg.com/">Digg</a> but what does Google Trend show? About the same interest as Dell (<a target="_blank" href="http://www.gateway.com">Gateway</a> trails the pack) from the searching consumers but still doesn’t have Dell’s media darling attention. Both conditions would seem counter-intuitive given Apple’s iPod marketing, so worth more investigation.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><img src="http://privateproductivity.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2006/12/googlepctrend3.jpg" /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in">Just for fun I tried out <a href="http://www.britneyspears.com/">Britney Spears</a> vs HP vs laptop and found HP still trounced the ubiquitous Britney Spears – whose minions seem to be equally searching for laptops - but that’s another study (for Six Sigma data analysis and problem solving).</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in">Cheers!</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"> <div class="post-info"> </div> <div class="post-footer"> </div> </div> <!-- You can start editing here. --> <!-- If comments are open, but there are no comments. --> <h3 id="respond">Leave a Reply</h3> <form action="http://privateproductivity.com/blog/wp-comments-post.php" method="post" id="commentform"> <p><input type="text" name="author" id="author" value="" size="22" tabindex="1" /> <label for="author"><small>Name </small></label></p> <p><input type="text" name="email" id="email" value="" size="22" tabindex="2" /> <label for="email"><small>Mail (will not be published) </small></label></p> <p><input type="text" name="url" id="url" value="" size="22" tabindex="3" /> <label for="url"><small>Website</small></label></p> <!--<p><small><strong>XHTML:</strong> You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong> </small></p>--> <p><textarea name="comment" id="comment" cols="100%" rows="10" tabindex="4"></textarea></p> <p><input name="submit" type="submit" id="submit" tabindex="5" value="Submit Comment" /> <input type="hidden" name="comment_post_ID" value="25" /> </p> <div style="display:block;" id="secureimgdiv"> <p><label for="securitycode">Anti-spam word: (Required)</label><span style="color:#FF0000;">*</span><br /> <small>To prove you're a person (not a spam script), type the security word shown in the picture. 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