December 2006
Monthly Archive
Thu 14 Dec 2006
Posted by John under
[174] Comments
I experimented with a new Google tool today called Google Trend and found some surprising trends in the computer industry.
There seems to be a lot more momentum in the general media with laptops – characters on TV programs spend more time with laptops, the Starbucks 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 (“contentâ€) and what people are looking for (“searchesâ€). 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.
Another trend I looked at was the activity surrounding a few large computer manufacturers. As can be expected, the search volume for IBM has been falling as Lenovo, 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 HP even while there is an increasing media content coverage of Dell (that hasn’t changed for consumers either up or down with the HP leadership struggles of late while Dell remains the consistent media darling).
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.
What about Apple computer? Apple gets a lot of attention on sites like Digg but what does Google Trend show? About the same interest as Dell (Gateway 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.
Just for fun I tried out Britney Spears 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).
Cheers!
Wed 13 Dec 2006
Posted by John under
[2] Comments
One of the things I have found annoying, and I’m curious how many of you do as well, is the infrequency of web sites dating articles.
Doing research on a random topic will produce several articles that lack any obvious publication date. Without the publication date it is hard to tell the contextual economic environment and timliness of the information contained in that article. “the article says to buy Cisco stock because it’s worth $50″ but CSCO hasn’t been at $50 since the Tech Wreck.
Many web blog platforms automatically date stamp posts. Where I seem to find more of the date lapses, and why I noticed it, are in articles at the big daily news or monthly magazine sites. It’s almost as if the professional journalists never had a habit of dating their work because they are always on the next deadline and the newspaper or magazine just automatically prints the date on the page or front cover.
So I’m curious, how many readers also experience this problem?
Cheers!
Wed 13 Dec 2006
Posted by John under
[7] Comments
There is rampant speculation continuing on Digg.com about Apple Inc offering a cellular phone. It seems a logical step for an emerging media company – the computer business is getting saturated and has been difficult for some time, making them think to go into iPod mp3 players and the iTunes music offering model.
I spent a few years living in hotels and airports and traveling on planes, trains, and automobiles. This was when the Franklin Planner became too heavy to pack (of course there are the micro sized units) and the mainstream PDA revolution had started with the Palm handhelds. After ditching the planner for the more portable PDA then the business traveler tools were down to the PDA and cell phone (a laptop can be ported around, but unless you’re stuck for extended work periods the laptop usually goes unused for a day or two trip that I was doing at the time to verify supplier product pre-launch readiness or fix supplier production problems).
To carry a music entertainment medium such as an iPod a traveler has three things (mp3 player, cell phone, and pda). It’s easier to carry two than three so the PDAs have fallen from use (phones picked up their features, but often not as well executed). Recently, phones have been encroaching into the music mp3 market, initially with ring tone downloads. So the next step of being a full player with downloaded music is easy for the phone companies. Apple sees the real threat. A traveler used to carrying two items will seriously think about carrying only one. And so the phone will absorb the music player (look at the size of Apple’s recent Shuffle – there is more in the package to be a housing, clip, jacks, and controls than the actual music and storage business).
The result is Apple makes the connection to sell a phone that happens to provide music services. They provide other downloadable content as well as offer user upload features (for sharing pictures, voice mail, etc from the phone) for that important web community. By designing the phone to be insanely easy and intuitive to use they will breach another market, one with subscriptions and lucrative long distance calling plans. It’s not if but when will Apple release a phone.
And once again the hardware company will expand further into services. Better phone home and tell them Apple is embracing the service economy again..
Cheers!