While you're pouring your first cup of coffee for the day, your computer is booting up.

You check your email.

On your way to work, you sneak a minute to check your email on your cellphone. As soon as you get into your office, you turn on your computer and ... you check your email.

And the sports scores from last night, plus world news, the performance of your portfolio, your bank statement, your favourite comic strip, and a quick check on the exact lyrics of the song running through your mind.

Can't live without your 'net? Neither can millions of other people. So how does www impact your b-i-z? Read the new book, Click, by Bill Tancer, and you might find out.

Let's say you were watching some "based-on-a-true-story" TV show last night, and you wondered what was fabrication and what was real.

If you're like millions of other people, you used a computer search engine to find information on that, as well as thousands of other subjects.

On his way to work one day, Tancer heard a "fact" that sent him on a mission. As head of sales, business development and market research at LookSmart, a search engine that works with advertisers, Tancer wanted to see if the "fact" was real. Several spreadsheets later, he had his proof.

This led him to question several things about internet data: Why are some websites visited seasonally - in the "wrong" season?

How can a population's biggest fears be turned into a "how-to" query?

Is a list of popular searches really indicative of what internet users are looking for?

Are you going out on a limb when you ask commercial viewers or listeners to click on your business's link?

Tancer found some provocative things in his search.

Women's magazines drive website usage for the formalwear industry. Visits to adult websites occur most frequently on Friday night and fall to weekly lows on Sunday.

And, based on political website visits, it's "nearly impossible to ... predict election results based solely on website visits and search-term volume."

So how does this impact your business?

Beats me. I was pretty well lost by the second chapter.

While the author appears to be very excited about his research and while there was the occasional AHA!

moment, the problem with Click is that it's way overloaded with data that, ultimately, means little unless you're in one of the handful of industries he cites.

Page after page of Click is jam-packed with information on web use and data searches, but - with the exception of one chapter (about "early adopters") - winnowing through it was difficult at best.

I think if you've got the time to connect the dots, you might find some valid information, but what's here surely boggled my brain.

At one point, Tancer gushes about how much he loves data.

You'd better love it, too, if you tackle this could-have-been-fascinating book. If you're not a data devotee, though, click on "no thanks."


Business Books

?Click: What Millions of People Are Doing Online and Why It Matters, by Bill Tancer
c.2008, Hyperion; $27.95; 221 pages, includes index.
(Terri Schlichenmeyer can be reached at schlichenmeyer@businessedge.ca)