Inside the Marketers Studio - David Berkowitz's Marketing Blog

Search Insider Midtacular

Someone employed by a European news service responded to my latest column, "This is just the kind of esoteric psychological speculation that I get off on (no, I'm not being ironic)." That's one of the best responses I've ever received, and it could be a great tagline for this blog - "esoteric psychological speculation that you'll get off on."

The column starts below and continues in the extended entry. You can of course also find it on the MediaPost blog (no registration required for the blog).

On to the column:

The Unpredictable Election

If you were able to, in any rough sense, predict the results of the U.S. elections last week for either chamber of our bicameral legislature (and, yes, I've been waiting years to use "bicameral" in a column), then you can feel pretty good about yourself. It means you have a leg up on the search engines.

I should slow down, as that's not entirely accurate. The search engines themselves weren't predicting anything about the elections (though it would be fun to see them try). What some of my colleagues and I tried examining, however, was whether consumer search behavior was a better predictor of election results than polls. It wasn't.

It's worthwhile to explore a situation where consumer search behavior has its shortcomings as a predictive measure. Generally, search behavior is great for indicating and even predicting trends, but the "wisdom of crowds" phenomenon doesn't always work, and it's helpful to explain why.

This research was spearheaded by my colleague Andrew Chang, who will unseat any incumbent for Researcher of the Decade. Now, let's review why search behavior had to concede to the polls in predicting the midterm elections.

The Bush and 'The Google'

Few stories write their own columns better than this one. The president of the United States was interviewed about his search habits, and he couldn't even get the search engine's name right.

Besides any political jabs, which were so easy I generally steered clear of them, it's a fascinating case study in what happens when a chief of state talks about engaging the activities of the common people.  Chief executives of any sort are pretty far removed from the front lines, and this is a great example.

While the interview might be mortifying for some, it's almost cute and endearing. One other point not included here, inspired by some comments on MediaPost's blog -- the President has limitless technological resources for satellite imagery, and he's using Google Earth. Google 1, CIA 0.

WATCHING THE CLIPS OF GEORGE W. Bush's CNBC interview that were posted on YouTube, I kept trying to think about what it all meant. After all, this is our nation's president, our Commander in Chief, the so-called leader of the free world. Anything he says about the economy, international relations, and social issues can potentially impact billions of people. So what can we learn from President George W. Bush when he talked about "the Google" with CNBC's Maria Bartiromo last Monday?

Bartiromo asked the President, "I'm curious, have you ever Googled anybody? Do you use Google?"

Let's parse his response, as posted in the transcript on MSNBC, and see what this could mean for the future of search, the Internet, and the free world.

Read the rest of the column in the extended entry, or on the MediaPost blog, where you'll find a bunch of comments.

Googling Elections

I try to refrain from posting articles that quote me so I can keep the head swelling down a bit, but I'll make an exception here for 3 reasons:

1) It's a good article about Google's role in influencing public opinion.
2) I didn't just give the reporter a quote; I gave him the subheader for the article.
3) Sometimes my head's allowed to swell (even Cara's encouraging it this time, and she's the first to keep me in check).

From ABCNews.com:

Google Bombing Politicians

Theoretically, Google Could Determine Who Controls Congress

BY NEAL KARLINSKY

Oct. 26, 2006 — For all of Google's power and popularity, here's an unexpected question:

Could Google tell people how to vote in the upcoming election?

"Google could theoretically impact an election," said David Berkowitz, at the search engine marketing firm 360i. "Presumably, Google could have a role in who controls Congress."

Here's how. A liberal activist with the group blog "MyDD.com" is directing his followers to "Google Bomb" 50 Republican candidates in the hopes of swaying votes. For example, if a voter is interested in finding out more information about Rep. John Hostettler, an Indiana Republican, the first thing to come up on a search of his name, according to this strategy, would be an article with the headline "Congressman cited with gun at airport."

There's more on ABCNews.com.