Google vs. Facebook in the Battle of Affinity

[Commentary] Every month, people click the “Like” button on Facebook more than 80 billion times. They post more than 10 billion updates on Twitter, and they write tens of millions of products reviews on sites like Amazon and Yelp. And with every one of these social actions, people declare their affinities — their preference for or desire to connect with other people, products, or things. This rush to post affinities online recalls another flood of data that began a decade ago: The explosion in online search. John Battelle once described the data created by search engines as the “database of intentions” — a catalogue of people’s needs and desires collected by observing their search behaviors. The idea behind the database of intentions is as simple as it is powerful: If you study what people are searching for, you can sell them what they want.

[Elliott is Vice President & Principal Analyst at Forrester Research]