New media
To wilf, to wander around the internet
By Heidi Dawley
Apr 17, 2007, 01:05

It's a Brit term, a new one, but it applies globally, and it's funny-sounding, as all good internet catch terms ought to be: wilf.

Wilf is a verb, and those who do it are wilfers. It may sound a bit nasty, perhaps a little predatory, but it actually refers to a penchant for wasting time online. Wilf is an acronym for “What Was I Looking For?”

But as cute as the term sounds, and as much as it may suggest simple procrastination, wilfing is actually a serious issue: an increasing lack of desire by users to ferret through lots of information to find what they're looking for online. They quickly lose focus and soon they're in wilfing mode.

A new study reveals that Brits now wilf away two full days a month aimlessly surfing the web when they should be working or studying.

“People are blinded by choice. So they freeze and end up aimlessly wandering around on the web,” says Jason Lloyd, head of broadband at moneysupermarket.com, a price comparison site, which commissioned YouGov, a market research firm, to undertake the research.

“Wilfing is really the tip of the iceberg in terms of what this issue actually evokes," says Lloyd. "It’s more than just people wandering about not knowing what they want. It’s about social content and the future of the web.”

Moneysupermarket.com commissioned the research with the idea of coming up with ways to help people find what they want online. 

What the researchers learned over 2,412 interviews was a growing disinclination among users to undertake lengthy searches against a sea of distractions.

In fact, researchers found that 70 percent of Britain’s 33.7 million internet users get distracted and surf aimlessly while online for work or for studies, and almost a quarter of all users spend 30 percent or more of their time wilfing.

That adds up to two working days a month, with large cost implications for British business. 

The chief distractions: shopping sites, followed by news and music sites (see chart, below).

Men are the worst offenders. A third of men even confessed that wilfing had damaged relationships with partners. (That’s not all that surprising; about 20 percent of men owned up to having been distracted by adult entertainment sites.) 

As much as anything the issue is laziness. Users have gotten over the wonder of the internet and now just want the information without having to work. Says Lloyd: “They are getting to do the point where they just want to type something in, find it and have it.”

This has one practical effect when it comes to online shopping. Rather than do their own product research, users are increasingly inclined to make buying decisions based on what others are saying, as in consumer reviews.

“People are becoming very lazy. They aren’t making their own choices,” says Lloyd. “They can’t make their mind up, so they turn to peers and ask what they bought."

Meanwhile, in online ratings for the week ended April 8, the top five parent companies were Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Time Warner and News Corp. Online for the 10th straight week. The top five brands were Google, Yahoo, MSN/Windows Live, Microsoft and AOL Media Network.

NexTag was the top advertiser with 7.15 million impressions generated, ahead of No. 2 Experian Group Limited at 7.10 million. With 28.11 million ads served, Yahoo was again the top advertising site, more than tripling No. 2 MySpace at 6.61 million.

Sessions per person per week were down from last week to 16, with domains visited per person also down two to 38. Average PC time per person per week was essentially flat at 17 hours and 2 minutes.