Search Now One Of The Most Popular Online Activities

Adult internet users go online for search more often than entertainment, e-commerce of even IM, according to a study by Harris Interactive for iCrossing based on 2,057 online users. Only e-mail and general surfing are more frequent activities. Some 35 percent use a search engine nearly every time they log on. What are they using them for? Researching specific topics (88 percent), getting directions or maps (75 percent), news (64 percent) and shopping (51 percent). Fifty-four percent say they use it as a phone substitute.
Different search engines attract different kinds of searches — MSN and Ask Jeeves users lean toward health and medical information and Ask Jeeves is used heavily for maps and directions. Google uses look for more news. Perhaps more interesting, Google has a slight loyalty advantage — 13 percent only will use Google compared to 11 percent for AOL, 10 percent for MSN, 7 percent for Yahoo and 2.4 percent for Ask.
I’d like to see six months from now who owns the digital media search categories — video, audio, images.

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