What people are really looking for

In class on Wednesday we evaluated the online strength of a company using various measures: page hits, quantity of search results, online chatter, etc. To me, one of the most interesting measures was search text analysis (http://inventory.overture.com). This tool returns a list of commonly used search terms and their freqency related to a term you enter into the tool. For example, if you enter "Starbucks," you get a list of the search terms people used that contained the word "Starbucks."

The tool bills itself as a way to identify which search terms to purchase, but it also sheds some light on the people behind the page visit numbers. Yes, it is important to know that people are (or are not!) visiting your site, but what does that tell you about them? You can use this keyword tool to gain insight into what those people are hoping to find when they visit your site. This is especially true for companies that do not do the same type of business offline as they do online. For example, in Starbucks stores, people can buy coffee drinks. This is not something people can do online. So, how does Starbucks know how to tailor their Web site?

Well, Starbucks probably uses plenty of expensive research to answer this question. But, a quick look at the top five common search terms that include "Starbucks" reveals that people are looking for information on coffee, nutrition, store locations, and franchise information, all of which are readily available on the Starbucks Web page. By this measure, at least, Starbucks appears to be on target.

The underlying assumption

One thing that struck me as we were discussing the origins, nature, and behavior of the Web in class Monday is that if success is measured by the number of visitors, the underlying assumption is that all content that is published to the Web is intended for any visitor, regardless of their intentions or desirability. But is this necessarily always true? There are certainly mechanisms used to deter just anyone from accessing a Web site--subscription, fees, technological blocks, access-point placement--but is there a class of Web site where deterance isn't feasible, but you also don’t want everyone to visit, and is success then not measured by number of visits?

An example that comes to mind is a professional blog that a co-worker created last year. Along with other people in our group, he began blogging about an upcoming software product release. In his blog, he discussed one of the controversial features he and his team had worked on and what he thought the benefits and limitations were. In turn he was able to gather comments, often heated, from public site visitors about what they thought this feature should do and how they planned to use (or not use) it. All very good and useful. But this blog also attracted blog-commenters who simply hate the company and posted comments that were derogatory or inflammatory, all off-topic. The content of these posts wasn’t so much the issue--people should feel free to hate the company and publish it if they wish--but it undermined the value of this particular blog exchange and made it more time-consuming to extract the good, helpful information.

So, is the success of this blog really measured by the number of visitors? I think that is the usual measure of success for a blog (number of readers). But, does that measure truly capture the success of the blog. In one sense, it does. A visitor is a visitor, and if you are blogging about something that elicits any kind of response you are at least making an impact of some sort. But, what if you have fewer visitors but a better exchange of information and ideas with a lower amount of effort?

Archiving the Web

I was once told (though this has the aura of an urban legend and might not be true) that in earlier years when Microsoft published a new suite of software, some people would scour the printed manuals looking for errors--omitted copyright acknowledgments, improper use of trademarked names, etc.--and would use these errors to bring lawsuits against the company. The manuals were costly to recall and reprint, and Microsoft's exposure remained for at least some duration.

Now much of this content is publicly available on the Web. The benefits for the company include, among other things, the reduced production costs of creating printed manuals and the ability to collect information about the kind of information people are seeking and adjust as demand dictates. And, if an error is discovered, the content can be immediately replaced. While public exposure to incorrect content is wider (more people can potentially see it), the duration of exposure is much shorter and the content is far less costly to replace.

But, if the content is archived, the company's exposure remains and the chance to replace the content in any manner, costly or not, is removed. I’m not a lawyer so this example may be bogus, but in this case the practice of archiving the Web negates, to some extent, the benefits of the Web's changeable nature.

If the alternative is not archiving, however, we are losing a valuable piece of our history. Then the Web's changeable nature means that one of the most extensive records (though not perhaps the most accurate) of our current worldwide society, culture, and existence is completely fleeting.

Likely the alternative is something else. But in any event, the outcome of the suit against archive.org may begin to lay the foundation for regulation in the future, along with other efforts to regulate this relatively new information medium.

Welcome to new blog

When there are real posts, this blog will report on things learned in an MBA E-Commerce class over the next four weeks.