E-Paper
You see what you need to see
People spend, on average, less than one second viewing display/graphical treatment ads, writes Deepak Mankar.
May and June seemed to have been 'good bye' time at Microsoft. Bill Gates announced his semi-retirement on 15 June. He even said he might considerably reduce his personal responsibilities at Microsoft by 2008. Five days prior to it, Vista proponent Robert Scoble too quit the scene. Earlier, a few weeks after the launch of its new security system (OneCare Live) and hours after the release of Windows Live Messenger, Microsoft lost two of its stalwarts: corporate vice president Martin Taylor and original Xbox team member Ted Hase. In fact, the latter, who worked with Microsoft for over one and a half decade, co-created Microsoft Media Center and was a major catalyst for its connectivity with the Xbox 360. Taylor's exit was even less expected. A 13 year employee of the company, Taylor was the chief advisor to CEO Steve Ballmer for some time and was said to be Windows Live Messenger's architect. When things happen, they happen in spades i quit microsoft.
Spam. More about its wicked, wicked ways.
This comment by Jason Lee Miller about spam is going to warm the cockles of all Mumbaikars who now detest The Reader's Digest slur on their manners: "One thing you can say about spam: it rescues us from turning to the Reader's Digest for humorous modern office anecdotes. Sure, it accounts for up to a 12.5 per cent loss of productivity, but what would our email stories be like without it?" He cites a new survey by Reflexion which shows that "most people receive between 50 and 200 emails per day, and 20 per cent reported that 50-74 per cent of all incoming email is spam". The company's 'Spam Personality' survey not only found that 96 percent of respondents spend an hour per day wading through the deluge, but had some interesting stories to tell." webpronews.
Spam. A real-life horror story.
At the above-cited link, you'll also find this true horror tale. It was told by Mark Hockhousen, Sales Operations Manager at New England Cable News, whose spam filter was "a bit overzealous": "My boss was in NY on some business at the corporate office. He sent me an email stating he needed me to fax some analyses we had done right away or we'd both be let go. The analyses had to do with the profitability of our division justifying its existence. I never got the email and never sent the information, so the division was shut down. The subject of his email - 'Fax now or get laid off.' Apparently, we could not get email promising to get us laid." You can also take Reflexion's 'Spam Personality' Test at reflexion.
Selective seeing online. You see what you need to see.
Needs drive perception. "Task-oriented users really don't pay attention to images on Web pages." This is an "interesting and much-discussed" observation from the findings of their first use of eye-tracking to evaluate Web design offered at the recently concluded Nielsen/Norman Group's Usability Week in San Francisco. And did you know which sort of images do NOT attract attention? (1) Generic/stock art. (2) Off-putting, cold, fake, too polished or 'set up' images. (3) Pictures not related to content. (4) Those that look like ads. (5) Those with low contrast in terms of color - not crisp. By contrast, those images that DO catch attention are those that are: (a) Related to page content. (b) Clearly composed and appropriately cropped. (c) Contain 'approachable' people who are smiling, looking at the camera - not models. (d) Showing areas of personal/ private anatomy. (Men tend to fixate on these areas more than women). (e) Items a user may want to buy. Ads with graphics users DO look at have these traits: (i) Heavy use of large, clear text. (ii) A colour scheme meshing with the site's style. (3) Attention-grabbing devices, eg, black text on a white background, words such as "free" and interactive (UI) elements. Surfers do NOT look at static ads with graphic treatment. They seem to 'zone out' ads and other site elements that have clearly distinguishable ad features (graphics and colours that make them look different from the rest of the site or animated ads) - with their peripheral vision. People spend, on average, less than one second viewing display/graphical treatment ads. nngroup.
Getting longer. Search query at Yahoo! Search.
The mid-May analyst presentation by Yahoo! referred to the change in search behaviour as measured by search query length, [which] is now more "sophisticated and specific": "The average search query length was 1.2 words in 1998, 2.5 words in 2004, and is now 3.3 words". The percentage shares of the 2005 search word pie are: 1 word (22); 2 words (30); 3 words (24); 4 words (15); 5 words (9); and 6+ words (8). "Search has become a key driver of traffic - 'the means and the end'," concludes the key slide in the presentation. "As search query length grows, conversion rates rise, according to a study released last year by Oneupweb and reported by brandweek.com: multiple keyword searches, where users input three and four search terms at a time, deliver considerably higher conversion rates than single-term searches. Academic studies show user satisfaction also increases as search query length grows. The paper "Query Length in Interactive Information Retrieval" is available at the UNC School of Information and Library Science: query length is positively correlated with user satisfaction with the search … longer search queries result in increased search effectiveness in general, indicating that more words from the searcher describing the person's information problem results in better interactive IR performance," writes Donna Bogatin in her May 18, 2006 post at blogs.zdnet.
Deep, deeper. The Invisible Web.
For people interested in fathoming the dark mysteries of the Deep or Invisible Web, here's a list of links to find you the appropriate resources:
library.albany |
lib.berkeley |
library.rider |
brightplanet.
Planet earth. How green will it be?
Google and Microsoft. As portals and search engines, both "use massive amounts of electricity to power and cool their data centres. But outside of the electricity that makes the businesses run, they are among the leading adopters of so-called green policies in corporate America," writes Elinor Mills in 'Microsoft vs. Google: Who's greener?' Full story: techrepublic.
Visit techgoss.com. Catch the latest scoops.
For all the goings-on in the BPO/KPO arena and more, do log in at techgoss. I did recently and found quite a bit of info I was unaware of. And guess what? Here's what my friend, Dhananjay Varma, who edits it, wrote to me: "… at least 10 new contributors have come on board since your plug in HT. Many thanks for the mention. We have also broken a few interesting stories"
That's all for now though there's plenty more out there. Join me again next week, same place.
Copyright (c) 2001- 2006 by Deepak Mankar. All rights reserved. Deepak Mankar, an advertising practitioner on the creative side since 1965, is also intensely passionate about the web and web content creation. Read his online articles at asiaondemand.com. Website:http://www.addgandhi.com/original/. You may e-mail him atdmankar@bom8.vsnl.net.in. Blog: popgoestheslop.blogspot.com.
