Photo: splorp

I love Google’s search suggestion feature. After typing just a few letters into the search box, Google seems to know exactly what I’m looking for. There can be some pretty funny Google suggest results, but for the most part, the boys and girls in Mountain View know what they’re doing. For fun, I wanted to see what the top suggestion was for each individual letter of the alphabet. The results give us a completely unscientific look at how people are currently using search, and the internet in general.

I present, The Google Alphabet:

A is for Amazon

B is for Best Buy

C is for Craigslist

D is for dictionary

E is for eBay

F is for Facebook

G is for Gmail

H is for Hotmail

I is for IMDb

J is for JetBlue

K is for Kohl’s

L is for Lowe’s

M is for MySpace

N is for Netflix

O is for Office Depot

P is for Pandora

Q is for quotes (top search result is BrainyQuote)

R is for Realtor

S is for Southwest Airlines

T is for Target

U is for USPS

V is for Verizon Wireless

W is for Walmart

X is for Xbox 360

Y is for YouTube

Z is for Zillow

A few observations:

• No Apple, Twitter, Wikipedia, Yahoo – Notable companies missing from the list include some of the biggest names in the tech world. Also kind of surprising is the lack of many of the companies normally associated with big advertising budgets such as McDonald’s, various car companies and individual food or beverage brands.
• No adult content – Given that the adult industry has been something of  a pioneer in providing content for the internet, this is a little surprising. So what are people using the internet, or at least searching, for? Shopping, communicating and researching.
• Discounters are popular – Not a surprise given the economy, but the list includes retailers on the lower end of the price scale (Walmart, Target, Kohl’s), sites that offer less-than-retail prices (Craigslist, eBay) and smaller, discount airlines (JetBlue, Southwest).

What observations can you make about The Google Alphabet? Which of the letters do you think will change first?

Video from Erik Qualman, author of Socialnomics: How social media transforms the way we live and do business. Some truly mind-boggling statistics. Still think social media is just a fad?

Long the domain of book and music retailers, online shopping hasn’t really caught on with the toilet paper and laundry detergent crowd. Alice.com, a new site that lets the manufacturers of many popular consumer packaged goods sell directly to customers, hopes to change that.

Manufacturers have been feeling the profit-pinch lately, both from recession-weary consumers and giant “middle man” retailers such as Wal-Mart and Target, eager to save shelf space for store brands.

Launched as a public beta in June (and named after the beloved housekeeper in The Brady Bunch), the site gives members access to thousands of name-brand toiletries and other household goods, including Crest, Kleenex and Tide, via shop-at-home convenience. The site also provides:

• Free shipping on every order – some planning is required, as there is a six product minimum per order, but this is a must-have feature in my book
• Clipless manufacturer coupons – competitive prices without the time spent clipping coupons
• Recommended products and reorder alerts – if you’re like me and never remember to buy the Charmin until you’re down to the last roll, this can be a life saver
• Multiple shopping options – shop by room, sort by the best deal, stick with your favorite brands or pick from a large selection of green products
• Convenient way to track spending – charts and graphs help you visualize spending trends, analyze coupon savings and refine your budget
• Interaction with online community – the “neighborhood” adds a social media twist to the site where members can create profiles, share tips with other members and provide feedback to the company. There’s also a growing following on facebook and twitter (@alice).

I’ve placed one order of typical household items and was very impressed with the convenience. It took maybe 15 minutes to complete my order, which arrived via UPS in two days. The potential time savings of being able to stock up on necessities in your free time should make this a very popular option for busy parents and professionals. Prices were much cheaper than other online retailers, and slightly cheaper in total compared to my local Target.

With the selection, savings and free shipping, I could see the site as a great way to send “care packages” to college students away from home or to aging parents, who may not be able to get to the store very often.

If only Alice could help do my laundry.

What features would make you more inclined to buy household goods online?

One of the most exciting aspects to me of social media is how businesses can use them to connect directly to their customer base. I recently posted a video of small business owners discussing how they use twitter for this very purpose. Traditional means of advertising have always been very one-directional: companies sent out the messages they thought customers wanted to hear. In fact, countless hours and millions of dollars have been spent on research and focus groups to try to discover just what it is that customers want.

Today, businesses can use social media to ask customers what they want.

Social media allow for much more effective two-directional communication between business and customer. Neil over at Quick Sprout recently touched on this when he wrote about using twitter to create interesting conversations with followers and to share knowledge. From a business perspective, companies can use social media to listen to their customers and then begin the process of interacting with, and engaging, them.

A great example of this is Starbucks‘ recent introduction of the Mini Starbucks Card, a version of the popular gift card small enough to fit on your key chain. Starbucks has said that the idea of the mini card was one of many inspired by its My Starbucks Idea site, where customers are invited to share and discuss suggestions. Starbucks is also great at using twitter to reach out to its customers: earlier today it offered $25 mini card reloads to the first five of its over-250,000 followers to post pictures of their mini cards to @starbucks with the hashtag #MiniStarbucksCard. A rather inexpensive way to create instant buzz.

What other companies “get” social media?

Ask any college student, and they will likely agree that one of their biggest expenses each semester is the cost of buying textbooks.  Professors notoriously like to teach the most cutting-edge theories, and publishers are more than happy to produce new editions of the same books almost annually.  The result?  Rising textbook costs, breaking budgets all over the country.  The internet has helped offset some of these costs, with sites like amazon.com and half.com giving students access to cheaper new and used books.  Still, buying books means a huge outlay of cash every semester for something you’ll need for a few months and then, likely, never use again.

“Annual per student expenditures on textbooks can easily approach $700 to $1,000 today.”

- Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance, 2007

Much like netflix changed the dvd industry, a slew of online textbook rental companies are changing the way students can get books.  Most offer a large selection of competitively-priced textbooks, for terms ranging from one month to a full semester.  Many also let you extend the rental period or purchase the book outright, if necessary.  Once the semester is over, most offer a prepaid shipping label to send your books back to the company.

I researched the rental prices for a sample of five textbooks that a typical MBA student might need to read, using some of the more popular web sites.  For comparison, I also found the purchase prices to own both new and used copies of the same books.  The table below shows the average price per book for a semester rental, not including any shipping costs (prices accurate as of 7/18/09):

I’ve used some of these sites and have never had any issues receiving or returning books.  Keep in mind that each is slightly different, so make sure to read through all of the details for every site.  For example, some sites will charge you extra for returning books with writing or highlighting in them.  If you doodle or need to highlight to study, those sites might not be for you.  Also, the sites with the lowest average price did not necessarily have the least expensive copies of all books, so it pays to check multiple sites before you order.

Before you head back to campus this fall, you may want to spend some time checking textbook rental prices online.  The savings can be substantial.

Are there any other sites that you’ve used to rent textbooks?

Great panel at TweetCamp San Antonio on July 18, 2009, discussing ways to use twitter from a small business perspective.

An unavoidable fact of life for any MBA student is the group project. While valuable for learning important concepts in teamwork and group dynamics, group work can also be very difficult from a logistical point of view. Teams can’t always find convenient times for members to get together in person to work. Juggling multiple versions of a word document can be a disaster waiting to happen. Luckily, Google has introduced Google Docs, which makes collaborating with classmates easy. All documents that you create are kept online, using Google’s secure servers, instead of on your hard drive. When you share a document with someone, Google sends them the link to access it. Multiple users can access and edit the document simultaneously, or add comments for other collaborators. Docs tracks all changes and stores older versions that can be recovered, if necessary. No more worrying about who’s the “keeper” of the most current version of the project.

I’ve used Google Docs for a number of individual and group projects with great success. Accessibility and collaboration are areas where Google shines. Word processing features, however, are pretty basic. Simple tasks such as changing line spacing or margins within a document are not yet possible. Because of this, when it comes time to print and turn in the final paper, I tend to download into Microsoft Office to format. If Google would improve the functionality of Docs (including the spreadsheet and presentation features) just a little bit, I could realistically see myself giving up on Office for good.

Another online office suite with collaboration capabilities is Zoho, but I have not used it enough to make a fair comparison. Has anyone had good or bad experiences with such online collaboration tools?