Legal Research

Yahoo vs. Google on Searchers' Wealth

Hitwise is reporting some interesting new data on the demographic differences between Yahoo searchers and those that tend to use Google. Read more here.

With the current Microsoft / Yahoo! soap opera this is interesting stuff. (Can you believe Yahoo! is even considering merging with AOL? That's just so lame. And News Corp.?! Anyway, I hope the widely predicted search consolidation happens fast. This pulling off the band aid strategy is starting to feel like a bad reality show. Now Yahoo's board is reported to disagree with Jerry Yang and wants to sell to MS and many shareholders are suing over not selling to MS. Do you think they could get The Donald to host the final episode?)

It is interesting that Yahoo! attracts a statistically significant younger audience. I wonder why this is? I could speculate that Yahoo Mail is more popular among teens, that Yahoo has more hits due to its old portal strategies, or that there are vestiges of the old Yahoo! directory strategy driving better experiences. Don't know though.

And I love this bubble chart. The bigger the bubble the higher the propensity to have spent $500 online.

Now kids are rumoured to have no, less, lots of money. Many have credit cards (I know some parents prefer that their kids don't have access to actual cash for some of those nasty cash transactions.) which can change their online habits. This chart isn't about kids though but the overall searching population.

Anyone know if there are any studies of library searches (website, OPAC, etc.) that delve into demographic data? I wonder how libraries in general compare online to the big commercial online presences. Are we actually addressing the digital divide? Do we serve the underserved? Do we do great at youth? Is there a gender imbalance? How about educational attainment?

Stephen

Full post as published by Stephen's Lighthouse on February 16, 2008 (boomark / email).