Message From Michael 
December 15, 2010
AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 WAYS
TWITTER ME THIS, BATMAN
THE MEANING OF THE WORD SATISFACTION
COCKTAIL CHATTER – THE SMARTEST CITY
AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 WAYS: To see the world in 80 ways is a researcher’s dream come true, and you can do it with a combination of Google’s Zeitgeist and Yahoo’s Clues programs. Both tell you the most searched items around the world, and one could argue, the different trends around the world. The “fastest rising” search item around the world, and in the U.S., was ChatRoulette, the randomized and sometimes raunchy chat service first mentioned in the Message shortly after it started a year ago. The Russian-based (how appropriate – as in Russian Roulette) concept was created by a 17-year-old High School student and can claim upwards of 1.5 Million users. The iPad was the second ‘fastest rising’ search item, followed by… Justin Bieber, the 16-year-old mop-headed Canadian singer whose career started with a YouTube video. Bieber was also number one in the Zeitgeist’s entertainment category (ahead of Shakira, Eminem and Lady Gaga), and number one in the people category (ahead of Katy Perry, Selena Gomez, Kim Kardashian, and Eminem.) But aside from questions like – what is Eminem doing back on the list – the real fascination is the people and things you may never have heard of.
For example, Nicki Minaj. All you ‘cool’ readers of the Message probably know about her, but this Trinidad-born hip hop recording artist was news to me. She was the fourth highest ranked item on the ‘fastest rising’ list and number eight in the entertainment category, although interestingly, she didn’t rank in the ‘fastest rising people’ category. Dig a little deeper into the Zeitgeist data and you find, not surprisingly, that she is the top search item in Trinidad/Tobago (100% interest) followed by Jamaica (68%), but she’s also a big deal in Botswana (55%). Then it’s the U.S. and Uganda (22%), followed by a series of African nations. Now, here’s where you can do some interesting digging… if you really are a geek… and guess who is? Nicki Minaj shows up most in the Yahoo Clues search among women 18 to 24 (25% of the searches) while Lady Gaga, for comparison, shows up big in men 45 to 54 (17%). And while Lady Gaga is big in Texas and Illinois, Nicki Minaj is big in Georgia and Texas. Yahoo Clues gives you demographic information on searches and also location information, but locations only in the United States. Google’s Zeitgeist shows you worldwide regional interest, but not demographics. Want another? How about Kesha? The 23-year-old American pop singer is a big deal not only in the U.S. (69%), according to Yahoo Clues, but particularly in Ohio… And, Lebanon (100%) and the Philippines (84%).
Even more interesting are the games and music sites that made the list, and that yours truly has never heard of. Ever heard of Myxer, or how about Grooveshark? Both are music sites which, coincidentally, were created in Florida, and although popular in the U.S., are also popular elsewhere. Grooveshark which is a music recommendation site, like Pandora, is especially popular in Costa Rica (100%) and Argentina (89%), while Myxer, which specializes in music ringtones, owes almost all its popularity to the U.S. (100%) and Canada (24%). Both have similar demographic skews, although women and people making under $25,000 are somewhat more interested in Myxer. Myxer is big in Washington state while Grooveshark is big in Ohio. Now, if you’re from Albania or Colombia, you’ve no doubt heard about and played the gaming site, Friv.com. Or, if you’re from the Palestinian Territory or Yemen, you are no doubt a big fan of the gaming site, Gamezer.com. Both sites made the ‘fastest rising’ list and both scored exceptionally high in search interest in those areas. If you’re like me, you haven’t heard of either one, but just to make me, and maybe you, feel better, the source of all knowledge (aka Wikipedia) did not have a listing for either one. Men 45 to 54 (34%) and people from the District of Columbia (100%) are most interested in Gamezer, according to Yahoo Clues; while women 35 to 44 (20%) and people from Louisiana (100%) are most interested in Friv.
In Zeitgeist’s ‘in the news’ category, although not in my realm of news are besiktas, Jorg Kachelmann and Menowin Frohlich. All three made the Zeitgeist global list of top searches ‘in the news.’ Besiktas, as far as I can tell, is a Turkish sports club whose football team is one of the major teams in Turkey. Besiktas, by the way, is also a district in Turkey where a stone supposedly from the cradle in Bethlehem where Jesus was born, is located. Jorg Kachelmann is a Swiss “presenter”, as they call anchors in Europe, who specializes in weather and who is popular in Europe. Menowin Frohlich is a German singer who apparently was a big hit on the German version of American Idol. The top search item in the news worldwide was Haiti, followed by besiktas, then Chile and Earthquake. The top item in the fastest rising search category in the news in the U.S., was, not surprisingly, the oil spill, which came in number ten on the worldwide list. Haiti and the earthquake came in second and third respectively on the American list, followed by Sandra Bullock, Favre (as in Bret), Lindsay Lohan, and then immigration, followed by Apple, unemployment and Tiger Woods.
TWITTER ME THIS, BATMAN: Avid readers of the Message (and, yes, there are some) will know that I’ve used this headline before, but at least it’s better than my original Twitter headline about Rockin’ Robin. A survey by the Pew Internet and American Life project found that one out of every 12 American adults (8%) who are ONLINE (note the emphasis) use Twitter; but even more interesting, the survey says Blacks are nearly three times more likely (13%) to use Twitter than Whites (5%) and Hispanics nearly four times (18%) more likely. The survey says that a third of Twitter users (36%) check for posted material either several times a day (24%) or at least once a day (12%). Even more interesting, two out of five (41%) say they don’t check for material ever (21%), or less than every few weeks (20%). Less than one in five (19%) either post personal updates once a day or more, or post re-tweets (18%) daily, or post general life observations once a day or more (16%). I should note that the survey identified 1,561 adult Internet users, of which only 102 were Twitter users.
THE MEANING OF THE WORD SATISFACTION: More than a third of the Internet connections in the United States (39%) are at the lowest end of what is considered a high speed connection, with downstream speeds of less than 3 Mbps and upstream speeds of less than 768 Kbps, according to a recent report by the Federal Communications Commission. As noted in previous Messages, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has often cited the U.S. as being at the low end of the broadband connection world. The report which contains the latest data as of December of last year (2009) says there are more than 133 Million of what it calls “reportable connections” in America. Of those, more than half (58%) have downstream speeds less than 3 Mbps. Nearly a third (30%) have downstream speeds of more than 6 Mbps. The rest are in between. Of those total reportable connections, nearly half (49%) have upstream connections of less than 768 Kbps. Only a tenth (12%) have upstream connections of more than 1.5 Mbps. It’s when you put together downstream and upstream speeds that you get the third who are at the low end. Oddly (to me at least) five percent of those reportable connections had downstream speeds of more than 6 Mbps but upstream speeds of less than 768 Kbps. I know… I know… you’re enthralled by the FCC report. Wait… there’s more. Another study on Internet satisfaction by the FCC says – surprise, surprise – that half (51%) of home broadband users are ‘very satisfied’ with their service with nearly as many (41%) saying they’re ‘somewhat satisfied.’ Almost the same percentage (50%) are very satisfied with the speed of the service and – big surprise here – customer service (49%). Now, hold on to your hats, the survey also found that people who have considered switching service are less satisfied with the service than people who have not considered switching. I kid you not. The federal government reported that as part of its survey.
COCKTAIL CHATTER: According to an analysis by business website Portfolio.com, the ‘smartest’ (please note the quotes) city in the U.S. is Boulder, Colorado. The website comes to that conclusion by analyzing the educational attainment of the top 200 U.S., markets, as reported by the U.S. Census Bureau. In Boulder, five out of every six persons (82.5%) have attended college, while a quarter (26%) have advanced degrees, which makes it the strongest concentration of higher education achievement in the study. Ann Arbor, Michigan, takes second place, while the nation’s capital, Washington D.C., takes third place, followed by Durham, North Carolina and back to Colorado where Fort Collins takes fifth place. Considering my position at the University of Georgia, I won’t go into which universities are located in those areas, although the Portfolio report cited that as a key factor. Athens was not on the list, mainly, I believe, because it does not qualify as one of the top 200 U.S. markets. Gainesville, Florida, came in 14th. Atlanta, by the way, came in 42nd. On only a semi-related note, the Associated Press’s TV Writer David Bauder reports that the game show Jeopardy is going to pit its two top champions against an IBM artificial intelligence computer named Watson in the upcoming year. On an even less related note, the Milliken Institute, a think tank focused on the global economy, released a report which says the best metropolitan area in the U.S. for jobs and economic growth is the Killeen-Temple-Fort Hood area of Texas. In fact, Texas scored 11 out of the top 25 spots for job and technology growth along with wages and salaries. Austin-Round Rock, Texas, came in second, followed by Huntsville, Alabama, at third. Just because I was curious, Boulder scored 56th on the list in the large metro area category while Athens scored 32nd in the small metro area category. The point is that you can go to the Milliken site and do comparisons.
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