I came across this article a few weeks ago but haven't really had the time or the energy to post about it. I did find it fascinating and still do however.
Basically, it's a simple x/y graph that compares Google.com portal users versus Yahoo.com portal users. The x-axis represents the Google users, and the y-axis shows the Yahoo users. The size of the circle in its respective position is in reference to the number of users who have spent more than 500.00 in online purchases.
I studied the graph and then compared the results to my own web habits, and I wouldn't really consider myself solely a member of any of these groups, but based on my lifestyle I would probably put myself in upscale America. The data for upscale America would suggest that I heavily use Google and that I have spent more than 500.00 in online purchases. The ironic part of these results is that I only use Google, and I have over the course of my life spent many thousands of dollars online.
This poses the question as to why the rich affluent Americans out there choose to use Google and the blue-collar and struggling societies choose Yahoo.
I have some hypothesis based from my own usage habits:
1. First I can't stand Yahoo because I feel like I'm running around in a web-based version of New York's Chinatown. Everything is a mess, there are distractions and advertisements everywhere. Nothing is really helpful and you have to go through many extraneous steps to find the information you are seeking that could be found straightforward elsewhere. Yahoo was meant to be more of a time sink than a search engine and you can see this when you actually use the two portals to find relevant information.
2. Since it is a time sink, I know that normally I am busy enough with my high-stress job and trying to live a semblance of a "city life" that I'm not going to Yahoo to play Texas Hold' Em, get distracted by the main celebrity gossip, nor am I there to Yahoo chat. You will notice Google has none of these on the main portal page. From my previous experiences living in Alabama and Indiana and now Brooklyn, I can attest to the much much slower lifestyle that most blue-collar and struggling peoples live, and can see why they would want to have such an entertaining site (Yahoo) at their disposal.
3. The spending of money online. Many times when I go on Google, especially to purchase something, I'm once again not there to get distracted, but just to search for the best deal on a given item. This is most likely why affluent America spends more through Google. Less filler (see hypothesis #2) and they have more money. Plus most developing American societies seem to have a stigma about spending their hard-earned money online, which seems to stem from a inexplicable mistrust of the computer as an entity.
4. Helpful web-based applications. No one can argue that Google has been a pioneering force for these, and continues to be on the forefront for innovative and useful web apps. I use on a daily or very frequent basis: Gmail. Google Alerts. Google Maps. Picasa image hosting. Froogle.com. Google Image search. Youtube.com. Blogger.com.
Note that each and everyone of these is a Google pioneered and/or owned service.
What has Yahoo pioneered? Maybe fleshing the chat room out of underground iRC channels and developing it for the masses. Also, Yahoo was around a little earlier than Google, and at one time was the prime search portal after the days of Lycos, WebCrawler, Dogpile, AltaVista, and Netscape.
Another question (and my own answer to it) is, what are the percentages of these Google and Yahoo users that use Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Apple Safari, and various Linux/Unix browsers? My answer, although without backing data, is that the Google users would be using most internet browsers that weren't Internet Explorer, while the blue-collar and struggling societies would be very close to full penetration for Internet Explorer exclusivity. I have personally used Firefox for many years and really see no reason to go back to Internet Explorer.
The moral of this post is:
If you make money, you probably want to use Google.
I came across this article a few weeks ago but haven't really had the time or the energy to post about it. I did find it fascinating and still do however.
Basically, it's a simple x/y graph that compares Google.com portal users versus Yahoo.com portal users. The x-axis represents the Google users, and the y-axis shows the Yahoo users. The size of the circle in its respective position is in reference to the number of users who have spent more than 500.00 in online purchases.
I studied the graph and then compared the results to my own web habits, and I wouldn't really consider myself solely a member of any of these groups, but based on my lifestyle I would probably put myself in upscale America. The data for upscale America would suggest that I heavily use Google and that I have spent more than 500.00 in online purchases. The ironic part of these results is that I only use Google, and I have over the course of my life spent many thousands of dollars online.
This poses the question as to why the rich affluent Americans out there choose to use Google and the blue-collar and struggling societies choose Yahoo.
I have some hypothesis based from my own usage habits:
1. First I can't stand Yahoo because I feel like I'm running around in a web-based version of New York's Chinatown. Everything is a mess, there are distractions and advertisements everywhere. Nothing is really helpful and you have to go through many extraneous steps to find the information you are seeking that could be found straightforward elsewhere. Yahoo was meant to be more of a time sink than a search engine and you can see this when you actually use the two portals to find relevant information.
2. Since it is a time sink, I know that normally I am busy enough with my high-stress job and trying to live a semblance of a "city life" that I'm not going to Yahoo to play Texas Hold' Em, get distracted by the main celebrity gossip, nor am I there to Yahoo chat. You will notice Google has none of these on the main portal page. From my previous experiences living in Alabama and Indiana and now Brooklyn, I can attest to the much much slower lifestyle that most blue-collar and struggling peoples live, and can see why they would want to have such an entertaining site (Yahoo) at their disposal.
3. The spending of money online. Many times when I go on Google, especially to purchase something, I'm once again not there to get distracted, but just to search for the best deal on a given item. This is most likely why affluent America spends more through Google. Less filler (see hypothesis #2) and they have more money. Plus most developing American societies seem to have a stigma about spending their hard-earned money online, which seems to stem from a inexplicable mistrust of the computer as an entity.
4. Helpful web-based applications. No one can argue that Google has been a pioneering force for these, and continues to be on the forefront for innovative and useful web apps. I use on a daily or very frequent basis: Gmail. Google Alerts. Google Maps. Picasa image hosting. Froogle.com. Google Image search. Youtube.com. Blogger.com.
Note that each and everyone of these is a Google pioneered and/or owned service.
What has Yahoo pioneered? Maybe fleshing the chat room out of underground iRC channels and developing it for the masses. Also, Yahoo was around a little earlier than Google, and at one time was the prime search portal after the days of Lycos, WebCrawler, Dogpile, AltaVista, and Netscape.
Another question (and my own answer to it) is, what are the percentages of these Google and Yahoo users that use Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Apple Safari, and various Linux/Unix browsers? My answer, although without backing data, is that the Google users would be using most internet browsers that weren't Internet Explorer, while the blue-collar and struggling societies would be very close to full penetration for Internet Explorer exclusivity. I have personally used Firefox for many years and really see no reason to go back to Internet Explorer.
The moral of this post is:
If you make money, you probably want to use Google.