image source: ehow.com

Following the DIY market, one can observe that the hobby / self efficiency based trend is still a growing business worldwide

(see data on the US DIY market, UK DIY market, Japanese DIY market, French DIY market, Global report)
For the last 2-3 years, the online habitat is making its own unique turn with sharing the do-it-yourself experience. Based on a growing demand for DIY knowledge, numerous websites and communities are dedicated to find the solution to million of “do it yourself” requests.

Observing the trend, I find the shift moving from home-repair industry (initially relied on men focus needs) to the creating and making. Do It Yourself crafts have become one of the most popular fields to develop, where companies as Etsy offer people a new way to make business out of making things. (Etsy in 2007 reports selling 1.92 million items worth a total of $26.5 million). The DIY culture is not limited to hand-making clothing or design items but extends today to community needs as well (community music, radio, television, green alternative products etc.).

Interestingly, Bill Tancer (Hitwise) in his upcoming book: “Click: What Millions of People Are Doing Online and Why It Matters” reports that “How To” queries represent nearly 3% of all US search queries, making it the most commonly search question. Following the top search queries under “how to” Bill Tancer categorized the searches into three groups:

1. Accomplishing a task (how to: tie a tie, make a movie, solve a Rubic’s cube, draw (specifically Japanese anime characters!)
2. Sexual needs (yes, indeed..)
3. Self improvement (how to: lose weight, gain weight, write a resume)

Hitwise: Top US search (end of 2007)

1. How to tie a tie

2. How to have sex

3. How to kiss

4. How to lose weight

5. How to write a resume

6. How to levitate

7. How to draw

8. How to get pregnant

9. How to make out

10. How to make a video

As I myself am a search trend follower, I totally agree with Bill – if you know what millions of people search online – it does matter!

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Findings: Major trends in 2010 Consumer Trends

Across many of these predictions, we have identified the following trends suggested to influence consumer behavior: Healthy, Value, Stability, Disclosure, DIY.
Is the Recession over? 2010 Predictions Suggests Consumers aren’t Buying it…

Merry Christmas, and may we all have a great year ahead.

Already released from the Trend Prediction Influencers Series:

@2010 Social Media (published also at NYTimes / RWW, Mashable, Examiner)

@2010 Consumer Trends.

@2010 Tech and IT.

@2010 Online Marketing.

@2010 Online Video.

@2010 Mobile

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Coping with the global recession has become more of lifestyle adjustment. TrendsSpotting adds to the Lipstick Index and reports five ways recession is changing our daily lives:

Latest fad in parenting “potty training”. Parents motivation to cut back on diaper expenses – resulted in huge surge of search “ for “three day potty training” ” (see this trend emerge through Google search). Still considering sanitary trends – according to Kimberly-Clark consumers are cutting back on toilet paper,  as put by CNBC reporter Jane Well “If you have less money, you buy less food, there is less to digest, which means less…”

Cutting on appearance expenses: while women are switching from hair salons to  do-it-yourself home hair color (see search volume growth for “hair color” capturing the “Dye Jones Index), men are growing the recession beard.

We are willing to dump our cellphone contracts & pare back on “extras” such as texting and mobile web access. New Millennium Research Council study suggests  39% of the Americans cellphone subscribers are likely to cut back on wireless service if the recession deepens over the next six months. One in five cellphone users who have extra features — have actually cut back or have considered doing so in the past six months. At the same time IBISWorld points out healthy 20.1% growth on VOIP. It’s likely that within next few months you will start calling up your friends/family more frequently using Skype /Jajah.

In the books industry – Cookbook sales are up – Amazon reported double digit growth.  If you are following Trendsspotting closely, its actually the DIY trend we reported earlier. More in books – the ebook: have a look at the rising ebook searches here (anything to do with kindle?) . IDPF reports impressive 75% year on year wholesale eBook sales growth during 2008 in US. And who is reading eBooks? It’s primarily women 40- 50 years old, with a higher-than-average income and education level.

Bartering is back. Craiglists reports 100% upswing on bartering boards traffic compared to last year. U-Exchange sign up almost doubled to 54,000 within an year. And how about exchanging your 10 Facebook friends for a free Burger-King whooper? Within a week after its launch 82,000 people bartered over 230,000 friendships on Facebook for a whopper.

Our earlier coverage on recession indicators:

• Lipstick Indicator.
• Economic Crisis Affects The American Well being .

More emerging recession trends:

• Consumer and Market Trends during Recession: Cross–Industry Research Report by TrendsSpotting.com {published October 2009}
• TrendWatching SELLSUMERS report
• Tribe’s research on purchase decision shifts

..and in case you are a marketer planning your advertising strategy, you better check the paid report covering recession advertising campaigns:
5 Dominating advertising approachs dealing with recession.

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Ok -its official now – having sex is the favourite free activity in US , atleast for the male. And here is what I am also seeing in Ask Top 10 question searches. The Top 5 being

#1 How do I get pregnant?
#2 How do I lose weight?
#3 How do I write a resume?
#4 How much is minimum wage?
#5 How much is my car worth?

Recessions have long been linked to an increase in birthrates & Malcolm Gladwell advocates recession is the best time to start a family.

But why 8 out of Ask top 10 questions are “How”?? Interestingly -Taly earlier pointed out the DIY trend & highlighted that the top search queries under “how to” can be categorized into three groups:

1. Accomplishing a task (how to: tie a tie, make a movie, solve a Rubic’s cube, draw (specifically Japanese anime characters!)
2. Sexual needs (yes, indeed..)
3. Self improvement (how to: lose weight, gain weight, write a resume)

A quick research in edicts lexicon index vis-a-vis Google trends shows following outcome :

As it turns out in our daily conversations we are only twice likely to phrase a question with “How” than “Why”. Whereas in our search behavior we are 10 times more likely to phrase a question with “How”.

Any answer “why”?

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