-what is a browser?
-what is a search engine?

Some of the answers given in the video include:

“A website you can search on.”
“A search engine.”
“It’s where you put your search terms.”
“Google.”
“The Yahoo!

One of the main concerns for a firm is when, how and to whom they should market their products. Firms make marketing decisions based on how much data they know about their customers and potential customers.

They may choose for mass market when they do not know much about their customers or they may market directly the consumer based on some observed characteristics.

Depending on the needs, the firm will use one of the two methods (primary and secondary) to collect its data.

Primary data collection is more expensive to produce as “they have to be observed and recorded or collected directly from respondents” (William M. Pride, 2008).

They are four main techniques (Baker, 2000):

1. Obtrusive: the interviewee is directly observed while realising an act (e.g. movement of an individual in a kitchen). Disadvantage: its impact on the behaviour of the interviewee as he/she knows he/she is observed; the observer shouldn’t intervene during the experimentation (Hamer, 2003)
2. Non-obtrusive: the interviewee is observed quietly by using “invisible” devices like electronic devices (e.g. camera, internet browser). Advantage: Nominal impact on the behaviour of the interviewee
3. 3. Experiment: the interviewee is requested to test a variable (e.g. a drug, flight simulator). Its difficulty: to establish the results keeping certain variables constant so that the effects of the experimental variables can be measured
4. Survey: the data are collected through mail, telephone, personal interviews that can be structured or unstructured (Amir Azarpazhooh, Winter 2008).  Its difficulty: the “physical” collection of the result is not guaranteed (e.g. the interviewee is too lazy to send the answer by post mail) (Ibeh, 2004)

Secondary data collection is less expensive to produce as they are normally compiled inside or outside the firm. They include: Firm’s records (e.g. Customers sales figures), Trade associations (e.g. chambers of commerce), Government statistics (e.g. Census) or Syndicated research reports (e.g. Gartner) (Baker, 2000) .

Today, the amount of data collected is so huge that computers, spreadsheet applications or more commonly “data mining” are tools used to give value to the data collected (Montgomery, 2001).

Clickstream data, defined as “the electronic record of Internet usage collected by Web servers or third-parties services” (Randolph E. Bucklin, 2008) tracks the navigation patterns of the Internet users in order to display advertising based on the observed interest of the consumer with a high degree of precision:

• Keywords collected from pages the consumer has loaded in its browser
• Data the consumer has entered onto the web pages (e.g. Facebook profile)
• Network-based marketing take advantage of links between consumers to increase sales (Montgomery, 2001); (e.g. Friends of Facebook)

Works Cited

unknown, A. (YYYY, MM DD). Critically analyse the effectiveness of primary and secondary research applied to product development (looking at qualitative and quantitative research). Retrieved December 05, 2010 from UK Essays: http://www.ukessays.com/essays/marketing/primary-secondary-research.php

William M. Pride, O. C. (2008). Marketing, 2010 Edition. Mason: South-Western College Pub.

Amir Azarpazhooh, W. H. (Winter 2008). Structured or unstructured personnel interviews? Healthcare Management Forum , 21 (4), 33-43.

Baker, M. J. (2000). Marketing strategy and management (Palgrave Macmillan; 3rd Revised edition edition ed.). Unknown: Palgrave Macmillan.

Edward H. Ip, P. L. (2004). Interactive Profiler: An Intuitive, Web-Based Statistical Application in Visualizing Educational and Marketing Databases. Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics , 29 (2), 157-175.

Ibeh, J. K.-U. (2004). Conducting survey research among organisational populations in developing countries: can the drop and collect technique make a difference? International Journal of Market Research , 46 (3), 375-383.

Hamer, B. (Director). (2003). Kitchen stories [Motion Picture].

M. Kataria, K. L. (2009). Effects of social marketing on battery collection. Conservation and Recycling (53), 429–433.

Montgomery, A. L. (2001). Applying Quantitative Marketing Techniques to the Internet. Interfaces , 31 (2), 90-108.

Randolph E. Bucklin, C. S. (2008, March). Advances in clickstream data analysis in marketing. Journal of Interactice marketing , unknown pages.

Strangly, I see no post concerning this important fact. Come on guys/girls, the first ever online email address provider!

Is it because Microsoft is owning the service that nobody even Microsoft talks about the anniversary? I guess that all products starting by “i” have a better selling argument for the moment.

Then, enjoy your email account and blogs about Hotmail.