Friday, February 23, 2007

Primary vs. Secondary Research - What's the Deal?

Many marketers (and other business people) often confuse primary and secondary research; it's worth exploring the differences and understanding which is what.

Primary data is first-hand data elicited through direct interaction with the research subjects using primary methods such as interviews, focus groups, surveys and experiments. Typically, primary data is gathered for a specific research problem. Market research that leverages primary data is called primary research; this may include interviews and focus groups, for example.

There are three types of primary research - exploratory research, descriptive research and causal, or experimental research. I'll be delving into each of these in future segments of the blog.

Secondary data includes data not collected for a specific project and may include information made available by a wide variety of commercial and government sources. Research that leverages secondary data is called secondary research. Places for finding secondary research include the library, the Internet, proprietary databases, and research firms that supply syndicated data.

Primary research is more expensive and more time consuming to conduct. Therefore, secondary research will almost always precede primary research, because by undertaking secondary research we can determine whether primary research is a viable route to pursue - and we can also refine our research agenda along the way. Secondary research can be quick, effective and relatively inexpensive. The following table summarizes the differences between primary and secondary research (data) -



(based on: Marketing Research - An Applied Orientation by Naresh K. Malhotra)

Comments? Questions?

ragingacademic

Thursday, February 15, 2007

What has Bezos, $6 million, and 20,000 contractors...

...and is not even half a year old?



CHACHA...

But no, not the dance.

ChaCha is a new guided search engine staffed by real live human beings.

The search engine launched September 2006, has raised $6 million in financing from Jeff Bezos among others, and has already signed up 20,000 guides to help the human race find what it is looking for...

Give it a whirl, the search guides seem to be quite chatty... :-)

Raging Academic

New Search Resources

Came across some new (to me) search resources that I wanted to share with you all -

Search Engine Journal
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/

Search Engine Radio
http://www.seoradio.com/

John Battelle's Searchblog
http://battellemedia.com/

ragingacademic

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

New Search Efforts from the "Big" Guys

A great little article in WSJ ("In Search of...Better Ways to Search," Vascellaro, Jan 17 2007) has turned me on to some intriguing new search efforts from the "masters" of search at Google, Yahoo, and Ask!

Google's new effort is called searchmash - the key here seems to be integrated search, you get everything on a single page including the usual text results plus images, videos, blog results, and most are viewable right from the search page.

Yahoo is using recently (ok, not so...) acquired AlltheWeb and AltaVista to test out various search technologies it probably does not want to run the risk of putting out on the major branded search page just yet. Both include interesting audio search capabilities that are worth playing around with.

The former "Ask Jeeves," now just Ask! is fooling around with some new technologies as well on Ask X. Is "Ask" a strange word, or is it just me?

Jimbo Wales, one of the folks behind Wikipedia, has embarked on search.wiki.com, which is touted as a "wiki inspired search engine" (...I'm not sure I know what that means yet...) - this is a freshman effort that you can join and help create, in an open source fashion.

Leave it to Microshloft to do something strange - If you can't join them, beat them?? Take a gander at Ms. Dewey...uh, Bill, this baby ain't going nowhere fast...

With a WSJ Online subscription, you can read the whole thing here.

Rage on.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Search Strategies for the Web and Databases - Part IV

A Brief Introduction to Boolean Search Strategies

The following tips should help improve your search capabilities several-fold, and you can use them on almost all Web and database search engines (e.g. databases available through academic and public libraries such as Proquest and ABI/Inform etc. - typically you can gain access to some of these types of resources from your home PC through a simple Internet connection) - the good news, however, is that if an engine doesn't support these options - it'll just ignore them.

1) Use quotes to specify terms - if you want to search for material about online marketing, for example, search for
"online marketing" (with the quotes)
rather than just -
online marketing (note - without the quotes).

The quotes will guarantee that the engine only returns pages where "online marketing" appears as a phrase, rather than returning every page on the Web or in the database where both "online" and "marketing" happen to appear.

2) Use "And" to further focus your search - for example, say you were only interested in "online marketing" of books - your search should look as follows -

"online marketing" and books

This kind of search will only return sites that include the term "online marketing" and also the word "books"

3) Use "Or" if you're trying to limit a search, as above, but would like to try a few different options - for example, perhaps you're searching for material on wine but don't care if it's red or white - try searching on the following combination -

"white wine" or "red wine"

This type of a search will return any page where either "white wine" or "red wine" can be found

4) Use parentheses to organize and combine searches. Let's return to the "online marketing" searches - say you're interested in online marketing of various types of media. Media can include books, CDs, videos and DVDs (among many other formats). You could structure a search as follows -

"online marketing" and (books or CDs or videos or DVDs)

The parentheses help ensure that your search is executed in the order you would like it to be - just like one would use parentheses in a mathematical calculation if you wanted to ensure that addition is completed prior to multiplication etc.

5) Use a negative sign "-" to exclude sites that include specific words or phrases - suppose for the above search you notice that most of the results in the first few pages are coming from McGraw Hill's site, but you want to get to results from other sites - run the search again, as follows -

"online marketing" and (books or CDs or videos or DVDs) -www.mcgrawhill.com

...and - voila - you should only receive search results that exclude pages from McGraw Hill's site.

In summary...

Search strategies can get a lot more intricate and complicated than the little that we've covered here. But - you've got to start somewhere. Typically successful searches will require some degree of iteration. Stay tuned to this space for more elaborate advice about successful search in the near future - and please don't hesitate to ask for clarifications, and to offer your own hints and tips, by responding to this post.

Monday, February 12, 2007

Search Strategies for the Web and Databases - Part III

Keeping on top of new developments in the search space

Basically, one Web site, and one newsletter, started by Danny Sullivan, the guru of search, more than ten years ago - should suffice to keep you on top of the search space. The newsletter link will lead you to a page where you can sign up for Search Engine Watch's paid service - or just for the free service. The value-add vs. the free version is not incredibly substantial for those of you not following the space profesionally; analysts etc. will definitely want to for-fee newsletter. There is also a Search Engine Watch blog, of course...

Danny himself has gone on to start Search Engine Land - destined to be a terrific search resource as well, I'm sure. I've been following Danny since back when I was Director of Marketing for Data Research Associates (DRA, acquired by SIRSI spring 2001 - now SirsiDynix), so I should know :-)

Google has its own blog where you can check out what the search behemoth is up to. If you look down the rightside column of GoogleBlog you will see a long list of other Google blogs, as well as a list of blogs and newsletters the Google team finds to be useful.

Google Labs is another wonderful source for new and exciting developments - check it out to see what may become actual product a few months or years hence.

Not to be outdone, Yahoo! has developed its own labs site.

If you would like to recommend any other great search sites, write me! (by posting a comment to this note)
Ragingacademic

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Search Strategies for the Web and Databases - Part II

A brief guide to the best search engines and directories available on the Web
(best option in each category designated with an asterisk)

Best Search Engines
Alltheweb - http://www.alltheweb.com/ (powered by Fast!, doing a good job competing with Google)
Altavista - http://www.altavista.com/ (used to be the top engine until Google launched...)
* Google - http://www.google.com/

Best Directories
Open Directory Project - http://www.dmoz.org/ (an "open source" type initiative, getting better every day...)
Looksmart - http://www.looksmart.com/ (also improving, but too much here is implicitly sponsored...)
* Yahoo! - http://www.yahoo.com/

Meta-search Engines
Meta-search engines search several engines in parallel, and return a collation of results.
If the search engines above fail you, this can be a good next-best option.

Metacrawler - http://www.metacrawler.com/ (I think this is the first of the meta-type engines; used to be the best)
* Profusion - http://www.profusion.com/CatNav.asp?ID=1&AGTID=1&queryterm= (use this link)
Dogpile - http://www.dogpile.com/
** SearchEngine base - http://www.searchenginebase.com/

Directory to Web Sites
From Yahoo... http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Internet/World_Wide_Web/Searching_the_Web/Search_Engines_and_Directories/

Reference Sites (where librarians go to find answers to the really tough questions...)
LibrarySpot - http://www.libraryspot.com/
RefDesk.com - www.refdesk.com
Librarians' Index to the Internet - http://www.lii.org/

Note - list soon to be updated...

Saturday, February 10, 2007

Search Strategies for the Web and Databases Part I

Search Strategies for the Web and Databases - Part I

In the next few days I'll be posting, in parts, an edited version of a guide I had been providing my students with since 2002. In this first part I'll try and give you a taste for the type and logic of search resources available to you through the Web. The second part will provide lists of what I perceive to be the best search engines and directories available. The third installment will include tips on how to keep abreast of new developments in the search and research space. The fourth and last installment will include a short tutorial on Boolean searching.

So - What kind of search resources are available on the Web?

Asked to name a search engine, most people would likely come up with either Yahoo! or Google. But Yahoo! and Google are as different from each other as night and day... Yahoo! is a directory - typically, directories work by cataloging entries that Web site owners and other interested parties submit. Therefore, if you don't submit your Web site to a given directory, you don't exist in that directory. But in the case of Yahoo!, even if you do submit your site, you may not appear in their directory... Why? A number of reasons. Yahoo! has cut back significantly on manpower in its directory department, and has built up a several months-long backlog (if not longer...), so they may just about be getting around to approving and cataloging sites submitted mid-year (if that). Some sites, Yahoo! librarians won't approve - or they won't approve them for the classifications for which they were submitted. And, Yahoo! has gotten into the nasty habit of trying to charge everyone for everything that they once happily provided for free (because they used to earn umpteen-hundred million dollars a quarter from Web-vertising! For an interesting perspective on Yahoo's new attitude, see for example Fast Company - http://www.fastcompany.com/online/60/jellis.html).

Google, on the other hand, is a true search engine. To appear in a search engine's results, you don't have to submit your site - in fact, in many instances, you can't. Rather, you need to structure your site in a way that will make it easy for search engine "spiders" and "crawlers" to find you. Spiders and crawlers are softbots (for software robots...) which "live" on the Web and constantly search and traverse Web sites, continuously feeding their "owners" (the search engine companies, typically...) with data. In order to ensure that such softbots find your site, you can employ many different strategies, beginning with well-defined and well-targeted "meta tags" in your html source code. An entire industry has sprung up around the very idea of developing strategies that will improve the chances such engines will find you - and that when individuals go to search for something relevant to you, your site will appear among the very top hits.

Search engines use various algorithms to index the Web - Google uses an algorithm called PageRank (after one of the company's co-founders, Larry Page) - but most engines index only a fraction of it; by some estimates, more than 70% of the Web is never returned in a search, meaning that effectively, unless you know of a specific site or page and go there directly - you'll probably never come across it. Google indexes more of the Web than any other search engine, and indexes it in a more efficient manner, which is why you are guaranteed to get results back lightnin' fast.

To summarize this section, then - there are basically two types of search resources on the Web - search engines and directories. Engines are better when you have less of an idea of what it is you are looking for, and vice versa. For example, if I am trying to locate the Web site for American Airlines, my best bet is probably to head over to Yahoo and search for "American Airlines" - Yahoo pulls the "American Airlines" category directly from its directory; click on it and you will be whisked off to a page that includes several links to "American Airlines" sites. But if I am looking for information about, say, "tropical birds" - I'm much better off heading over to Google - I'll get a much richer and more up-to-date result set. In other words, engines are good for a subject or concept search, while directories work better for "object" searches (company, person, product and so forth).