Hitwise Intelligence - Asia Pacific

Climate Change defeats a Prime Minister

2010-06-24T04:07:09Z

Maybe a simplistic headline, but Australia now has a new Prime Minister after Kevin Rudd stood aside for Julia Gillard to take the reins of the Federal Labor Party and the Australian Government.

An impending federal election combined with a series of political errors, such as the handling of the Home Insulation Scheme and the backflip on the ‘greatest moral challenge of our generation’ - Climate Change, forced the hand of the Labor Party factional heavyweights jittery enough to make a move.

Throw in the Mining Super Tax as part of the overall Tax Reform, Immigration and Health Reform and Kevin Rudd’s government was facing challenges from all sides. But what do we as the Australian public care about? Which issues are the ones we are interested and invested in, and did the Prime Minister read the temperature of the community accurately? Obviously not.

Using search data as a way of tracking interest in specific subjects I have constructed a series of search term portfolios based around Health Reform, Tax Reform (including the Mining Super profits tax), Climate Change, and Immigration (including asylum seekers) to gain a grasp on the comparative importance to Australian Internet users.

Of all of the issues, Climate Change has the highest level of awareness followed by Immigration, the two issues that Kevin Rudd has been criticised most heavily for over the past months. The Insulation Scheme while a debacle on many fronts didn’t capture the broader interest in the community and was able to be overcome comparatively quickly.

Comparing search volumes of Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, against the backdrop of Tony Abbott, highlights the increased interest in Julia Gillard over the past months, increasing 450.0% since the beginning of April (week ending 19 June 2010 compared to week ending 3 April 2010), while Kevin Rudd has also seen an upswing of interest over the same period of 93.8%. These upward shifts for the Labor Party Leaders occurred at the same time that interest in Liberal Leader Tony Abbott fluctuated from its 2010 peak in week ending 3 April to currently sit 73.8% lower, a concern for the Liberal’s confronting a 2010 election campaign.

Interestingly the top 10 search term variations for each of the Labor Leaders are not too critical or negative, as could be expected, considering the recent political events.

One interesting variation to note is the 8th most searched for term featuring Julia Gillard – ‘Julia Gillard treason’. Maybe the Rudd family will be responsible for this search terms growth during the current week.

As Australia’s first female Prime Minister it is an historical appointment and the newspapers and bloggers will have a field day picking over the remains of Kevin Rudd’s political career. What will be interesting to watch will be the rebuilding of Julia Gillard. I have no doubt that social media will have a very large part to play and it will be fascinating to watch it unfold.

One thing that can be sure is that Labor is listening and Julia Gillard will put Climate Change back on the current agenda before any election will be called.

Could this have the unintended outcome of being the remaking of Malcolm Turnbull?

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Is the World Cup of Tourism value?

2010-06-23T03:43:30Z

How do we judge the value of large international sporting events such as the World Cup Soccer to the host nation?

- Infrastructure investment
- Employment gains
- Increased tourism – immediate and ongoing
- Ongoing awareness

It’s obviously all of these things and many more that go into making a decision and commitment to aggressively bid for an event of the magnitude of the Olympic Games or World Cup. The bid committees no doubt have a number of various formulae that support their decision and gain government support for a bid.

Using search terms as an indicator, I have categorised the top 1,000 search terms that include ‘south africa’ into four portfolios and tracked the comparative growth of each search portfolio.

General enquiries about South Africa. i.e. non World Cup specific, have been on a steady incline since the beginning of the year and in the week ending 19 June increased 121.0% over the week prior to the start of the World Cup (week ending 29 May 2010).

World Cup specific ‘south africa’ searches as expected rose sharply as the event finally got onto the pitch, with search volumes increasing 14-fold (+1,300%) in week ending 12 June 2010, then receding in week ending 19 June 2010 to be 355% higher than in week ending 29 May 2010..

Other sports including cricket and rugby experienced a doubling of search volumes (+100.0%) in the past week, but off a much lower base, the previous weeks peak (week ending 12 June 2010)is reflective of the current South Africa vs. West Indies cricket series currently taking place in the Caribbean.

Tourism related searches for South Africa rose 133.3% in week ending 19 June compared to week ending 29 May 2010, The chart highlights the gradual build of tourism related searches from early March and then a steeper growth from the start of May.

Leading search terms within the Tourism portfolio are:

So things are looking good for South Africa’s tourism efforts; later in the year we’ll be able to judge whether they have been able to retain some ongoing benefit post the World Cup.

Locally Australia’s Football Federation announced recently that it has decided to withdraw from the bid for the 2018 World Cup and focus their energies solely on winning the host nation rights for the 2022 World Cup. A specially developed website has been built to harness support and share information and news about the bid. Come Play (www.australia2018-2022.com.au) was launched in June 2009 and after the immediate hype settled down while drawn out negotiations and consultation over ground rights with the NRL and AFL played out, sometimes very publicly.

As the World Cup drew closer the site experienced strong growth, but not back to the highs of the original launch in June 2009.

Search volumes though do provide another perspective into the psyche of the Australian Internet user, and with the chart below highlights the search volume has climbed back to the levels of the launch of the bid.

Though not reflected in share of visits growth to the official bid website, the search volumes have grown over 6 times (511.1%) in week ending 19 June 2010 compared to the week prior to the start of the World Cup, week ending 29 May 2010.

A goal or two on the pitch may further support Australia’s bid to bag the World Cup in 2022, because after the debacle against Germany last week and the draw with Ghana, it’s unlikely to come downunder in 2010.

We’ll continue to update information around online behaviour relating to the World Cup in South Africa over the coming weeks, to keep up to date connect with us via Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn.

Ronaldinho & The Group of Death

2010-06-09T02:31:23Z

The buzz is building around Australia’s second consecutive tilt at the Football (Soccer) World Cup which begins on 13 June against Germany in the first game of the so called “Group of Death” that also features Ghana and Serbia.

Australian Internet searches featuring ‘world cup’ increased 139.8% last month (week ending 5 June 2010 compared with week ending 8 May 2010) as Australian searched for information via over 5,000 search variations. The ten most popular search variations of ‘world cup’ were;

With interest around the final make-up of the squad and the controversial friendlies with New Zealand on 24 May and the USA on 5 June, the volume of search for the Socceroos has quadrupled in the fortnight since week ending May 22 (+314.5%).

Interest in Fantasy Football competitions and in sports betting or the available odds have generated increased search volumes in the in week ending 5 June (compared to week ending 22 May), World Cup fantasy Football searches increasing 183.3% and World Cup Odds and Sport Betting related searches jumping 225.0%.

Team related queries have increased 76.5%, and search interest in fixtures and World Cup dates increased 95.0% and 55.6%, respectively, comparing week ending 5 June to 22 May 2010.

Search queries relating to the TV and Online coverage of the World Cup increased 76.5% since week ending 22 May, with SBS being the main recipient. SBS has dominated the World Cup coverage related search terms with six featured in the top ten search queries, well ahead of Foxtel’s first appearance in the search volume rankings at number 15.

Of the 939 athlete’s within the provisional squads for participating countries, Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo was the most searched for World Cup athlete, outpointing Australian stars Tim Cahill and Harry Kewell. Brazil’s decision to cut Ronaldinho from the squad seems to have done his popularity no harm being one of seven internationals to make the 10 most searched for footballers last week.

We’ll continue to update information around online behaviour relating to the World Cup in South Africa over the coming weeks, to keep up to date connect with us via Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn.

iPad - Data Plans and Apps lead the way

2010-05-24T08:02:51Z

In previous blogs we commented on the release of the iPhone and the changes in search behaviour from the initial product announcement through to the launch. In Sandra’s previous posts ’iPhone Australian Launch - Features and Apps driving Consumer Interest’ and ’iPhone plans and prices top of mind’ she tracked the change in consumer interest which moved from product and applications searches to an increasing focus on data plans and prices as the launch date loomed.

With only four days until the iPad is released in Australia, there are similarities in search behavior with an increased interest in data plans and phone companies, whilst application searches haven’t been as dominant after iPad’s the initial announcement.

With Apple initially launching the iPad in the US, Australians have been able to read reviews and news from the US market to understand the benefits on owning an iPad, before its launch here. Applications are no longer the mystery they were when the iPhone was launched, so the excitement/interest, whilst still relatively strong, hasn’t been the key search driver.

The major interest has been around news, reviews, pricing, applications and of course the final release date of the iPad.

Optus and Telstra are the dominant carrier’s associated with the iPad, no doubt benefiting from iPhone’s popularity, followed by Vodafone. Telstra and Optus’ positions are reversed, when compared to the weeks leading up to Apple’s iPhone launch in July 2008 – this is seen through the search term portfolios relating to iPad and the respective carrier brand.

Last week ‘optus ipad’was ranked 5th amongst all search term variations of ‘ipad’, followed by ‘telstra ipad’ (week ending 22 May 2010).

Traffic generated from carrier branded search terms are being fragmented by news sources such as Gizmodo, IT Wire, APC magazine and others. Both Optus and Vodafone have implemented search marketing activities since the week ending 15 May, to capture consumer interest in the iPad, but only Telstra and Optus currently feature data pricing plans.

Telco carriers face a challenge to differentiate themselves from each other and attract consumers, with a search for ‘ipad’ across all carriers (Optus, Telstra and Vodafone), returning a limited number of branded listings on the first page of Goolge’s search results.

The remaining Google listings are all media and forum related results, providing users with an array of choices but impact the carrier’s ability to capture consumers’ full interest in their plans.

This highlights the need for carriers to implement Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) strategies as early as possible to maximise interest in the product and execute Pay Per Click (PPC) in line with consumer interest trends (measureable via search variations).

The combination of PPC and SEO strategies and tactics are an imperative in this highly competitive market and the earlier they are implemented the bigger the advantage or outcome.

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Searches for Property for Sale and Credit Cards attract strong growth in NZ

2010-05-17T08:29:19Z

Following on from my post on Singapore financial search trends, we also looked at New Zealand queries to provide a reflection of economic conditions. We similarly found in NZ during Q1 2010 a rising trend for users to research a range of financial topics, including searching for properties to buy and rent, mortgages, credit cards, loans and savings.

* Property for sale searches (eg. ‘houses for sale’, ‘houses for sale auckland, ‘property for sale’) increased by 195.1% in the first quarter of the year compared to Q1 2009, and 53.4% up on Q42009.
* New Zealand locations that attracted significant year on year growth in property for sale searches included Auckland, Ashburton, Christchurch and Masterton, Rodney District and One Tree Hill.
* Searches for mortgages were down on last year by 7.3%, though have shown recovery with an 23.5% increase through Q1 since Q4 2009.

* Property for rent searches (eg. Variations of ‘houses for rent’, ‘holiday homes for rent’, ‘properties for rent’) increased by 130.5% in the first quarter of the year compared to Q1 2009 and 66.5% over the quarter.
*Trade Me homes for rent’ was the fastest moving rental search term year on year, highlighting the strength of the auction site outside of retail. Fast moving locations for rentals included, Auckland, Manurewa, Oamaru, as well as overseas interest in Melbourne.

*Searches for loans increased steadily by 48.8% year on year, and 31.5% over the quarter. Student loan queries dominated the top loan searches, accounting for 4 out of the top 10.

*Searches for credit cards increased by 150.1% over the year compared to Q12009.
* Driven by branded search, with ‘global plus credit card’, the most searched for credit card term, experiencing 26.9% more searches than last March. Other leading branded terms in order of popularity included, ‘kiwibank credit card’, ‘bnz credit cards’, ‘warehouse credit card’, ‘bnz credit card’, and ‘asb credit card’.
*Searches for ‘credit card balance transfer’, ‘low interest credit card’, ‘credit card fees’, were prominent generic searches as consumers tried to transfer and manage their debts.

*Searches for savings increased by 85.3% over the year, and increased by 47.5% over the quarter as consumers remained fiscally cautious.

Property searches attracting the highest growth amongst finance queries in Singapore

2010-05-14T02:42:03Z

Recently we analysed the online financial behaviour of Singapore Internet users, and found an increase during the first quarter of 2010 in search queries around financial needs, including searching for properties to buy and to rent, mortgages, loans, savings and credit cards.

In particular we found strong growth in property searches for sale and rent in Singapore reflecting high property demand and price growth. Interest in the stock market, reflected by search behaviour, cooled in comparison to the property market.

Here were our financial search portfolios comparing Q1 of 2010 to the same time last year:

Source: Experian Hitwise

* Property for sale searches (eg. ‘properties for sale in singapore’, ‘house for sale in singapore’) increased by 407% in the first quarter of the year compared to Q1 2009, 183.1% up on Q42009.
* A peak in property for sale searches in early March 2010 reflects expected new price highs in 2010.
* Searches for mortgages were up by 164.8% year on year, and increased 14% over the quarter.
* Property for rent searches (eg. Variations of ‘houses for rent in singapore’, ‘property for rent in singapore’) increased by 428.2% in the first quarter of the year compared to Q1 2009 and 51.5% over the quarter.
* Searches for loans increased by 239.1% year on year, and increased 68.2% over the quarterly. ‘Personal loan’ and ‘housing loan’ were the two most popular search terms.

* Credit Card searches increased by 225% over the year compared to Q12009.
* Branded credit card search terms dominated the leading queries, including, ‘citibank credit card’, ‘uob credit card, ‘ocbc credit card’, ‘dbs credit card’ and ‘hsbc credit card’.
* Searches for credit card promotions were amongst the top queries, such as ‘uob credit card promotion’, as Singapore consumers shopped around for the best deals.

* Searches for savings increased by 267.3% over the year, and increased by 39.5% over the quarter, indicating that Singaporeans remained cautious overall about their finances.
* Stocks, Shares and Bonds related queries were up 40.7% year on year, but down 16.9% as the property market gained the interest of investors.

Singapore: Social Networks continue to trump Search Engines

2010-04-29T08:39:28Z

Having recently re-located to KL, Malaysia, I thought it timely to provide an update on the nearest market we’re tracking here, Singapore. Unsurprisingly, Social Networking and Forums was the most popular online industry visited by Singapore Internet users in March 2010. What’s of interest is that this has consistently been the case since September 2007. Contrast that to Australia, where Social Networking and Forums overtook Search Engines for monthly visits only during March this year. Visits to Social Networking websites by Singaporeans is therefore a deeply embedded component of Internet usage and has been for a decent amount of time.

Singaporean Internet use is dominated overall by web-based activities (i.e. navigation, communication, and publishing) reflected by the prominence of Search Engines, Portal FrontPages, Email Services and Blogs. Stocks and Shares was the only ‘commercial’ sector amongst the top 10 industries. Multimedia, Games, Software and Reference sites were also amongst the top 10, highlighting a strong learning-orientation to web use.

While Social Networking and Forums has been dominant for some time, it is still growing at a strong rate, moving 2.74 percentage points, or 24% year on year (see below table). Travel sectors have also been growing strongly, including Maps (27%), Transport (13%) and Commercial Airlines (20%). The debut of Google Maps Singapore in November 2009 significantly contributed to growth in Travel – Maps visits, while in the Airlines sector, visits to Tiger Airways, Jetstar Airways and Air Asia all grew by 29.5%, 10.7% and 17% respectively.

Facebook’s phenomenal global growth has not left Singapore untouched, attracting the highest growth in visits amongst all websites. Twitter notably was amongst the top 10 fast moving websites, growing at a faster rate than its predecssor, Plurk. Amongst Singaporean websites, inSing.com, a lifestyle, entertainment, business and shopping channel, grew at the fastest rate, debuting in April 2009. Both Google Singapore and Bing notably gained strong traction.

While it’s illustrative to gain an overall sense of fast moving industries and websites, I’ll be spending more time over the coming months examining a range of commercial and lifestyle industries in more detail in Singapore and Hong Kong. Feel free to post any topic requests in the comments section.

Where now for Bebo users in NZ?

2010-04-09T00:51:44Z

I used to keep in touch with a lot of in family in NZ through Bebo, but over the last few months or so, have noticed Facebook being used more frequently instead. So when I read about AOL’s decision to either sell or shut down Bebo, coupled with some of our own stats on declining visits to Bebo, I was not surprised.

Bebo attracted 2.16% of visits to Social Networking and Forums websites in New Zealand during March 2010, and still ranks as the third most popular website in this category (behind Facebook and YouTube). Bebo declined significantly in visits by 67% compared to the same month last year. Facebook in contrast grew by 57% year-on-year, and attracted 21.4x more visits than Bebo in March 2010.

Bebo was the most popular Social Network in New Zealand until May 2008 when Facebook briefly took over; Facebook then went on to gain rapid momentum against all websites from late November 2008 onwards. This was later than in some markets, such as the UK (see Robin's post).

What are the demographics of Bebo in NZ?

Bebo has traditionally attracted a strong online following from our Mosaic Lifestyle segment, "Cultural Ties" which has high proportions of Maori and Pacific Islanders, and continues to be over-represented in this audience. Facebook with its rapid expansion has enjoyed a migration of users from this segment, and has widened its audience base overall.

Social Networks in general in New Zealand attract an over-representation in visits from lower affluent Mosaic Groups, including "Working Fringe", families with stretched budgets in outer suburbs, and "Family Growth", young families living in cities, which may be one issue that will affect continued efforts in monetisation of Social Networks.

In contrast, Mosaic Group, "Urban Intelligence", comprised of affluent and tech-savvy households, has concentrated usage on Entertainment and Lifestyle websites focused on offline activities, such as Nightlife, Performing Arts and Restaurants. This may be a reflection of greater disposable spend in this consumer segment.

Migration to Facebook and other Social Networks

Looking at the websites where new visitors go after Bebo throws up little surprises – Facebook and YouTube attracted the highest volume of clicks in March 2010. Interestingly, Twitter attracted a much higher new visitor rate at 44%, suggesting that it is still a novelty for some Internet users in New Zealand.

For the meantime, Facebook offers a good home for Bebo users, who have brought their friends with them and thus kept their network base; the fickleness of users on Social Networks should however be remembered by Facebook, as it is strives to maintain the attention span of users through continued innovation.

YouTube and Twitter are also prominent social media websites in New Zealand and have taken some market share as a result of Bebo’s decline. They both however offer a very different user experience to Facebook and do not appear to pose an immediate threat. As usual, we'll be keeping an eye on the competitive Social Networking space for any new up and comers.

Shop till you drop - The Competition just got hotter!

2010-03-31T04:58:17Z

Online trends are sometimes subtle and other times they are so obvious that they beckon further investigation. Over the past two months we have seen a strong trend appear in the Shopping and Classifieds – Apparel and Accessories industry, with the rise of the exclusive member shopping clubs.

These online clubs function differently from other member-based shopping websites as they offer limited time, members only private sales, offering up to 80% off RRP on selected items.

The first of the exclusive member shopping clubs to increase its online activity in the Experian Hitwise rankings was brandsExclusive . We also a reviewed their visitor acquisition strategy leading into Christmas in a recent blog ’Paths to Retail Success’.

Since week ending 13 February, 2010 Ozsale’s share of visits skyrocketed, propelling it to the number one position in the Apparel and Accessories (Shopping and Classifieds) category. The same week saw the rise of another exclusive members club, BuyInvite which now sits just behind brandsExclusive - making the top three websites in the Apparel and Accessories category all exclusive members shopping clubs.

The rankings within the industry have always been relatively volatile as can be seen by the rankings table above and the three new entrants have immediately challenged the traditional brands and existing online players.

The table below highlights the Mosaic Australia Lifestyle profile of the three exclusive member shopping clubs compared to the overall Apparel and Accessories industry

The over represented Mosaic Australia Groups highlight regional and country Australia’s desire to have access to leading brands at lower prices and to be receiving exclusive offerings. A short description of each of the over represented groups are;

· K - Community Disconnect - Older blue-collar workers and retirees in country and coastal locations
· H - Provincial Optimism - Anglo-Australian blue-collar families in provincial settlements
· I - Farming Stock - Rural landowners and workers in agricultural heartlands

Further analysis of the demographic profile of the websites indicates that:

- 62.7% are female (index of 105 against Apparel and Accessories – Shopping & Classifieds),
- 48.5% aged 25-44 (index 115) and 24.4% aged over 50 (index 101)
- More likely to live in Tasmania (index 144), South Australia (index 112) and Northern Territory (index 109)

One of the contributing factors to the tremendous growth of the exclusive member websites is the frequency of emails promoting new sales and offers, sometimes three or more times a week. This drives their visitation and has a corresponding impact on competitors such as EziBuy and Witchery, whose traffic hasn’t necessarily declined in real terms.

The importance of the email database development is highlighted in the dependence of the three websites upon email for their traffic. The chart below highlights the importance of email comparing the exclusive member shopping clubs and the overall Apparel and Accessories (Shopping and Classifieds) industry.

The test for the exclusive member shopping clubs will be the quality of their sale items and desirability of the brands, which promise up to 80% off retail prices, and if this enough to keep shoppers coming back time and time again.

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Gen Ys most loyal shoppers to Appliances and Electronics sites

2010-03-22T07:06:32Z

Earlier this month, Commonwealth Bank in conjunction with the University of Canberra launched Viewpoint - a report on the economic vitality of Australia. The report found that Gen Ys' spending habits were surprisingly resilient to the Global Financial Crisis - “Gen Y’s spending increased 6.2 per cent in 2009, despite earnings growing only 2.5 per cent and job losses in the age group rising 13.6 per cent.”

This insight corresponds broadly to a finding from our recent study on the “New vs. Returning” visitors to Shopping and Classifieds – Appliances and Electronics websites in the lead up to Christmas last year. Interestingly, 18-24 year olds were 44% more likely than the online average to be returning visitors to Appliances and Electronics websites in November 2009. Even though Gen Ys were amongst the hardest hit group by economic pressures, they were still the most engaged online researchers in one of the most popular online retail categories last year.

In comparison, users over 55 were the least likely to return to Appliances and Electronics websites. Given that 55+ users have high purchasing power, and are becoming a larger segment with Australia’s ageing population, retailers should be stepping up their efforts to market to this group and create compelling content that invites repeat visits.

We also looked at the broader Lifestyle Mosaic Groups and found that “Learners and Earners (students) and “Pushing the Boundaries” (young families) were the two household groups most likely to have repeat visits to Appliances and Electronics sites in November 2009. The strength of repeat visits by young families, in addition to students, suggests that households with tight disposable incomes may also be engaging in higher than usual comparison shopping activity.

Department Stores fastest growing retail sector online in NZ

2010-03-19T00:25:02Z

Visits to Shopping and Classifieds – Department Stores websites grew by 55.6% year on year in February 2010 compared to all categories by New Zealand Internet users. Department Stores websites have attracted strong interest from shoppers since December 2009, when visits reached an all-time high.

NZ Visits to Department Stores Websites, Feb 09 to Feb 10

Amazon.com was the leading Department Stores website in December 2009 with 28.3% share of visits. Local brand, The Warehouse – New Zealand, ranked at second position, also held significant share with 21.9% of visits. Quick deals websites are also helping fuel growth to the online Department Stores sector, with 3 Deals, Dealaday, Snatchadeal and 6 Shooter all amongst the top 10. Other leading bricks and mortar brands included Farmers and Kmart New Zealand, while NZ Herald Shopping debuted at #10.

The prominence of discount players amongst the leading Department Stores websites is reflected by an audience swing to mostly middle-class and low-income groups. The top 4 Mosaic Lifestyle Groups over-represented in Department Stores visits included:

· “Grey Power” - retirees residing in coastal resorts, large towns and provincial cities.

· “Provincial Pride” – traditional households in provincial towns.

· “Suburban Comfort” - wealthy areas of educated professionals, family households.

· “Working Fringe” - mixed families with stretched budgets in outer suburbs.

Other consumer retail sectors in New Zealand that have enjoyed strong growth include Apparel and Accessories, Grocery and Alcohol and Video and Games.

Housing Bubble Searches in Australia at all time high

2010-03-11T05:23:01Z

Housing affordability in Australia is currently a hot issue with a recent rise in interest rates, an end to the first home buyers’ grant, and subsequent slowed lending. Despite this, pressure on house prices remains high with a fast growing population and a shortfall in housing development.

There is potentially an element of desperation amongst home buyers and this is reflected in their search behaviour. Search traffic around the term ‘housing bubble’ was at its highest point during the week ending 6 March 2010:

Property websites have attracted strong growth in visits year-on-year from two very different Mosaic Lifestyle groups - “Community Disconnect” and “Privileged Prosperity”.

“Community Disconnect” households are best described as ‘Older blue-collar workers and retirees in country and coastal locations’. Much of the visit growth was from the Mosaic sub-segment “Fractured Families” - Disadvantaged singles living in inexpensive accommodation. Their strong interest in property websites could be reflecting pressures on finding rentals amidst stock shortages.

“Privileged Prosperity”, the wealthiest segment online, was the second highest household type to increase visits to Property websites over the year. The prominence of this group is indicative of property interest by the investor community.

I’d be keen to hear your thoughts on other changes to search behaviours we’re likely to see from Australian home buyers this year.

Bushfires 2010 Online: What did we learn from last time?

2010-02-22T22:09:07Z

Last year I wrote about the online response to the Victorian bushfires and how Australians used the Internet to find out important information about this devastating crisis. In this post, I want to explore if there has been any ‘learned behaviour’ in the community about being prepared for environmental disasters as reflected in their search patterns.

The below chart appears to indicate that online users were quick to react online to the event last year, but the volume of searches around ‘bushfires’ this year is relatively small in comparison.

It is encouraging however to see in the chart below, that the types of searches around bushfires that I covered last year, namely, Appeal, Education, General, Informational, Services have had various ebbs and flows - most likely in response to some of the offline campaigns that have been run by the various state authorities. There has been some prominence around ‘education’ related searches in the past few weeks, indicating some desire by users to be equipped with knowledge about bushfire safety.

Who is being strategic about online crisis management?

Our data can also illustrate the types of websites that are receiving traffic on bushfires, to help determine which organisations are being effective in getting online community traction. The NSW Rural Fire Service received the most traffic on ‘bushfires’ for the past 12 weeks, reflected in the table below:

Other government groups are using tactics such as pay-per-click to get traffic (accounting for 2.5% of clicks from ‘bushfires’ searches), resulting in their appearance amongst the top websites.

For government and community organisations, both short-term tactics should be used to meet immediate information needs (e.g. PPC and Display), while long-term campaigns (e.g. SEO and Social Media) should be used to mitigate complacency and instigate cultural change around bushfire awareness in Australia.

Chatroulette: Sensation or fad?

2010-02-19T03:14:15Z

The water cooler talk on Monday morning was about a new site people had discovered called Chatroulette – a website that allows random strangers to talk face to face via webcam. Within days we had discovered articles in the Melbourne Age and Sydney Morning-Herald, the UK Guardian, the New York Times, and then yesterday my colleague, Robin Goad, in the UK ,beat me to the punch providing some statistical background of the web sites rise in prominence in the UK.

Online global sensations are far and few between and there is no guarantee whether Chatroulette is a flash in the pan novelty or whether it can be leveraged into a longer term idea of substance. This is a smart piece of hacking / mashing from a Russian teenager that makes use of Skype to connect people around the world, and as the name suggests, it is a bit of a roulette gamble on the strangers you’ll connect to via your webcam.

The chart below highlights the accelerated growth as the word started to spread, and a media driven peak on 16 February. Chatroulette currently stands as the 481th ranked website visited by Australian Internet users (17 February 2010), down from the peak of 356 the previous day and the number two webcam website behind Coastal Watch.

As reported in Robin’s blog, the UK profile of Chatroulette’s audience are wealthier and more sophisticated compared to the general visitor to the webcam industry. A similar trend has emerged in Australia with the three wealthier profiled Mosaic Groups being highly over indexed against the Australian online population – Privileged Prosperity (The most affluent families in the mist desirable locations), Academic Achiever (Wealthy areas of educated professional households) and Young Ambition (Educated and high-earning young singles and sharers in the inner suburbs).

Last week (week ending 13 February 2010) Search Engines and Social Networking and Forums were the main drivers of visits to Chatroulette, delivering 76.3% of upstream traffic (Search Engines 38.4% and Social Networking and Forums 37.9%) with Blogs and Personal Websites being the third highest upstream provider with 4.2%.

The novelty already may be wearing off for Chatroulette as average visit times have dropped from a peak of 14 minutes 25 seconds in the week ending 2 January 2010, to 6 minutes 38 seconds last week (although an increase on the previous week). The peak in January was more than likely driven by the holiday period, with users having more spare time to surf the web for entertainment whereas the lower average visit time experienced last week may be impacted by Australian time zones.

Whether Chatroulette will be a global sensation or a passing fad is sure to become clearer in the weeks ahead.

My School drives growth for My School Australia

2010-02-17T00:25:00Z

An inadvertent outcome from the launch of the Federal Government’s My School website was the huge traffic spurt to the social network, My School Australia.

The Federal Governments awaited education website, My School (www.myschool.edu.au) launched at the start of the school year, with much debate whether the website was simply a rankings table for schools limited value or if it serves a more substantial ongoing purpose.

My School publishes comparable results based on Australian schools with a statistically similar student population, versus being a straight ranking of schools from 1 to 9,000+.

As a parent I feel vindicated (perhaps a little smug) that my son’s school is performing well above statistically similar schools (and the alternate local schools). School children in years 3, 5, 7 and 9 are assessed by the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (www.naplan.edu.au), and the results are published annually on the My school website.

My School ranked as the 28th most visited website by Australian Internet users on 28 January across All Categories and the number three Education website by Australian internet users. Within five days it had fallen out of the top 100 websites (ranking 105th on 1 February) as the news and debate subsided, and has since fallen to 860th on 15 February.

The Computers and Internet - Search Engines industry delivered 61.4% of upstream traffic to My School in the week of its launch. Search terms containing a variation of My School (including misspellings), accounted for 87.9% of all upstream visits from Search Engines. The high level of branded search terms indicate the PR success / awareness of the My School website launch.

The top 20 upstream websites featured only five News and Media - Print websites, with Google.com.au and Google.com being the prominent referral websites. Social Networking and Forums were also prominent, with Facebook and the education specific network, My School Australia (myschoolaustralia.ning.com) capturing increased traffic and then referring visitors to the My School website.

The ranking of the social network, My School Australia, moved from 97,979 to 598 in week ending 30 January, an inadvertent by-product of the Governments My School launch. It has since dropped back to a ranking of 15,872 as of 15 January.

The debate will continue about the validity and value of the My School website, but there are 12,000+ happy social network members and one relieved father since the launch.

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