The Free World of the Web
As my dad would often say, “There’s no such thing as a
free lunch.” The phrase originated with an offer first proffered in American
saloons in the mid-1800s. In order to draw patrons, drinking establishment
would offer free lunch as long as patrons purchased a drink with their meal.
Elaborate economic discourses have ensued over the years, arguing that a
free lunch is a logical impossibility. Still, if search data is any
indication, we’re obsessed with finding just about anything that’s free.
Using the Hitwise database of U.S. Internet searches,
I’ve amassed the most popular 10,000 search queries that contain the term
“free.” When compared to all Internet searches, terms that contain “free”
are by far the most popular. For the week ending June 16, 2006, over 3.9% of
all searches in the U.S. contained the term “free.” The hunt for cost-free
products and services ranged from “free games” and “free music” to searches for free
ringtones, credit reports and myspace layouts. But by far the most
searched for free items are of the prurient nature: four of the top 20 free
searches are “free sex stories,” “free sex,” “free sex videos,” and “free
sex pics.”
“Freeness” is seasonal; searches spike during the holiday season,
surpassing 4.2% of all internet searches as holiday shoppers are lured by
“free shipping” offers. Summers show an equivalent rise in free queries,
as boredom and more leisure time drive interest in “free games,” “free
chat,” “free movies” and of course “free myspace layouts.”
The most surprising part of our “free” quests is just how optimistic
our searches can be. There may be no such thing as a free lunch, but plenty
of people look for the 78th most searched-for term, “free money.”
I entered the query
into Google to see if perhaps I had been missing out. The search results
are dominated by a number of listings for sites that help you find federal
grant money , sponsored
listings for different loan products and
advertisements for services that help you find unclaimed funds.
It’s ironic that, among the 10,000 “free” search terms,
even into the long-tail of unique queries, there is one search term that is
noticeably absent. Maybe the adage has conditioned us to think that
searching for it would be even more futile than “free money.” There’s not
a single search for “free lunch.”
Next:Yahoo Goes Back to Square One
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