Attention: RSS update…

I’m giving feedburner a try — if you are accessing this feed via RSS, please update to http://feeds.feedburner.com/afhill

This was the week of “emerging metrics” discussions at work. We actually had an entire lunch session discussing traditional versus emerging metrics. “Page views” simply isn’t enough anymore. As site visitors become more sophisticated in how they use the web, we need different ways to measure these interactions, to ascertain the site is meeting business goals.

In a few discussions we were having about projects past and future, we were discussing the challenges in measuring dissemination of content. For the widget we created for the People’s Choice Awards, we could tell how many times the page with the widget code was accessed, and we could tell how often the widget was viewed, and we could tell how often it was clicked through. There was one step missing: how often it was actually deployed. In the same vein, the pageviews of a particular blog are down. But the material is being discussed in the community. Because people aren’t going to the site: the information is being delivered to them.

In our lunch session the other day, the notion of measuring RSS adoption rates was brought up, but I wasn’t sure how that was done. I know once upon a time, email open rates were measured by tracking the calls to a small transparent image that was sent with the email. These old techniques are all but irrelevant with the different email readers that don’t automatically download images. As well, I wasn’t sure that all feedreaders necessarily embed binary content anyway. So I was really intrigued about how to measure this adoption rate.

I did a small internal presentation today on the different widget distribution platforms (focussing primarily on widgetbox and clearspring), and one of the key benefits they offered were metrics related to distributed content. Some of these included “viral hubs,” “active placements” and “click-throughs”. Releasing content to the masses doesn’t have to mean losing track of it.

I had had some concern that our Metrics Analysts would be overwhelmed if they had site metrics, widget metrics and rss metrics to work with, but supposedly they want as much information as they can get

I figured that I should become comfortable with feedburner and what it offers, so I’ve converted to using it here. Please, if you are subscribed to this feed, update to http://feeds.feedburner.com/afhill

thanks!

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