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MySpace
To Sell "24"
MySpace is diversifying yet again. The Internet social network has announced plans
to begin selling episodes of the hit Fox show "24." This move comes
as part of an effort to grow the company into a business entity comparable to
Yahoo or iTunes.
The
(Legal) Guide to Podcasting
New guidelines have become available for podcasters with the intent of helping
them avoid legal woes. The Podcasting Legal Guide specifically addresses issues
related to remixing audio clips...
Yahoo,
Telemundo Ready Hispanic Portal
A partnership between the Spanish-language TV network Telemundo and Yahoo has
delivered a new site that blends their content in a new presence online.
AOL
Lays Off 1,300 U.S. Workers
AOL announced on May 9 that it would lay off 1,300 workers at its customer call
services in Arizona, Florida and Utah, due to a maturing online audience and more
competition.
Amazing Race Feeds Into E-Commerce
Reality show contestants don't vanish into fictional poofs at the show's conclusion.
They're not the cast of Friends; there is life after the show. Chip Arndt,
half of the winning duo of Amazing Race 4, left reality stardom...
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05.15.06
Are You Using The Wrong Web Metrics?
 By
Gerry McGovern
Do you base success on measuring the volume of visitors and page impressions?
Such measures may in fact reflect the failure-rather than the success-of your
website.
I recently rented a recreation vehicle to drive down Route 66 in the United States this summer. A friend recommended Cruise America, so I went to its website. It was a confusing and time-wasting experience. I tried to "Get a Quote" several times but it wouldn't work properly. I left the website frustrated.
Because I kept hearing about Cruise America from other sources, I decided to try the website again. I encountered the same problems and left the website even more frustrated. I'm a "repeat visitor" for the Cruise America website.
Just because someone is coming back to your website does not necessarily mean they had a positive experience the last time they were there. They could have felt frustrated, confused, annoyed. They could have given up, and came back again to give it one more try.
Perhaps the less we go to a software vendor's website, the more satisfied we will be as customers. Why do most of us go back again and again to such websites? To solve problems, perhaps? Wouldn't it be better if we didn't have these problems to solve in the first place?
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How many visitors to your website are a reflection of some weakness in the solution/product you have offered your customers? If you made better, more robust products-if you explained how they worked better-would you have fewer website visitors?
I have heard search engine optimization consultants advise keeping out-of-date, inaccurate content because it helps bring more visitors. That's like having a sign in a window advertising bananas. People come in looking for bananas, only to find a big box of rotten, blackened, stinking bananas.
In October 2005, I listened to Jared Spool, founder of User Interface Engineering, talk about a study they did on clothes retail websites. The study found that, for example, the Gap website was much more successful at selling clothes than Newport News.
The study also found that the average purchase on the Gap website took 12 pages, whereas the average purchase on Newport News took 51 pages. The more pages people looked at the less likely they were to buy.
It makes sense. You go into what you think is the right section of the website to find that pair of jeans. You find a selection of jeans to choose from, and you spend some time choosing, then you choose.
But supposing you go into what you think is the right section of the website to buy jeans, and you realize that this is not the right section. You hit the Back button, and try again and again. You're clocking up pages and you are certainly clocking up frustration, until finally you Back button out of the website.
Volume is simply not enough when it comes to measuring the success of a website. Volume can hide failure. Repeat visitors could mean loyal customers but they could also mean frustrated potential and actual customers. Lots of page views/impressions can mean customer engagement but it can also mean lost customers.
Identify the core tasks of your website. Measure how successful people are in quickly completing those tasks. Because it's not about volume; it's about successful task completion.
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