WebProNews

Search is important in the business world, keeping companies like Google and Yahoo afloat and causing others to revise their sites in every way imaginable.  Search often indicates what society as a whole is up to, as well, and Bill Tancer explored this trait at SMX East.

(Coverage of the SMX East conference will continue at WebProNews Videos.  Keep an eye on WebProNews for more notes and videos from the event this week.)

Tancer, who works as Hitwise's general manager of global research, is in a good position to take on the subject.  He started his keynote by stating his love of data; apparently he recited pi to 200 places as a kid.  Tancer also quoted Walker Percy, who once said, "To become aware of each possibility of the search is to be onto something."

The Hitwise exec went on to talk about how people have searched more and more for gas-related sites as prices have risen.  Searches for porn have become more popular (perhaps because the economy has left folks wanting a diversion or lift) and banks have been receiving additional traffic.  "Data provides powerful insight to what's going on with the economy," Tancer observed.

As for the pop culture side of things, Tancer spoke about searches for "hot photos" of Stacy Keibler and Sarah Palin.  The increasing volume of searches for Bigfoot costumes appears to be related to the recent hoax, too.

Finally, to return to tech and Google, looking at all this search data has allowed Tancer to identify groups of early adopters, and it turns out that the traditional groups haven't yet embraced Chrome.  This is likely because Google didn't do much to acknowledge Linux and Mac users.

WebProNews Video anchor Abby Johnson contributed to this report.