[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbIGbZ6gq_Y] Love this video. Although Louis C.K. is a comedian, his observations are so true and I don't know if I should be laughing or nodding. We do take technology for granted don't we?

If you're interested in finding out what people are saying online but don't have the budget for expensive social media monitoring services, here are some tips for doing it the Google way (read free). Be site specific User opinions are best found on specific community sites such as TripAdvisor for travel and IMDb for movies. In Singapore, there's a lot being said about consumer technology on HardwareZone for instance. Here's an example of searching for opinions on the new Intel Core i7 on HardwareZone to get a feel for what Singaporeans are saying about the new processor:

intel core i7 site:hardwarezone.com.sg

But you'll notice that not all of the results thrown up are user opinions, some of them are articles, press releases, and professional reviews. Identify the honeypot Keeping on the example of HardwareZone, most of the user opinions are found in the Forum and nowhere else. You might notice pages such as:

forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/showthread.php?t=2167944

www.hardwarezone.com.sg/articles/view.php?id=2736&cid=2&pg=2

What you would notice is that these pages contain unique terms in their URLs which we can use to our advantage. Now, we're only interested in the actual forum posts, not the pages that have the topic listings. For that we can use:

site:forums.hardwarezone.com.sg (because it's their forums are on a sub-domain) inurl:showthread (which points to actual posts on a thread)

So we end up with a Google search string that looks like:

intel core i7 site:forums.hardwarezone.com.sg inurl:showthread

Clean up user habits Now you've honed in on the honeypot of opinions, but you'll notice that this community uses the same forum for buying and selling which is not really rich in opinion. So to clean that up you can add:

-wts -wtb -sale

By doing this you've eliminated most of the "want to sell", "want to buy", and "for sale" posts. So your search string looks like:

intel core i7 site:forums.hardwarezone.com.sg inurl:showthread -wts -wtb -sale

So that's how you use Google to mine for opinions which would be extremely useful for many product vendors. Other examples Here are are some examples of search strings I've found most useful:

[keywords] site:twitter.com inurl:status [keywords] site:answers.yahoo.com inurl:questions [keywords] site:amazon.com inurl:review [keywords] site:tripadvisor.com inurl:ShowUserReviews [keywords] site:epinions.com inurl:reviews -search [keywords] site:complaints.com -directory

Note: Google and other search engines have a limit of 1,000 results. But then again, that's already a good sample of opinions.

Yahoo's Site Explorer results of eok.net
I've noticed in recent months, many marketeers are trying out simple campaigns that involve bloggers linking to a microsite, survey, or some interactive game. While web analytics is a great way to track visitors, it doesn't have the best view of who's linking to your site. I found Yahoo's Site Explorer tool to be very handy for that. Here's an example of who's linking to this site. In fact, if you know the URL of your competition's site, you could check out their success rate as well.

Screenshots of BuUuk beta
If you like HungryGoWhere or Yum.sg, you're gonna love this.  I've just got myself a beta version of BuUuk, an iPhone App for finding places to eat in Singapore. I'm guessing the name is a play on the word "book" like "book a table at a restaurant"? Even as a beta version, I have to say this is a great app and a much needed localised product. While there are all the usual elements of an iPhone App: search, scroll menus, tabs for featured, top rated, and categories, BuUuk does an amazing job of connecting your geospatial data to your food. In other words it completely solves your hunger woes because:

• You get to search for what you want to eat.
• When you find some you get to pick the highest rated.
• When you pick that highly-rated restaurant you get to read reviews if you still have time and your digestive juices haven't killed you yet.
• But, if you're in a race against time, it tells you the distance you are from it via your GPS data.
• If you're on a non-GPS iPhone (like me) it tells you how far the place is from its nearest MRT station.
• But if you're lazy like me and want to drive, it also gives you a map and a button out to get directions from your Google Maps app.

But despite all the fancy technology, these guys haven't forgotten that the iPhone is essentially a phone. On every page that shows a restaurant, there's a huge orange Telephone button to press and make a phone call to the restaurant. And in the spirit of Web 2.0, they haven't forgotten about the social features as well. Without even the need to login, you can simply cast your vote with a single button press at the end of every satisfied meal. How much simpler can that be? I know I'm suppose to be a beta tester, but I can't seem to find the bugs. Its not really crashing or mucking up. But if I could propose some improvements it'd be:

• Dates on the reviews and blog posts so I know what's current.
• What does the map and distance mean for an iPhone 2G user who doesn't have GPS?

Other than that, it's an awesome app that's going to stick with my iPhone for the long haul. Oh, and BuUuk is looking for more Beta testers. If you're interested, why not drop a note in the comments below and I'll let them know you asked.