Chasing Technology

So I’ve got a vision for the Internet where my Web is different from yours. We may visit the same sites, but the experience in terms of the content we see and the objects we’re served will vary based on: clickstream, history, intent and other factors that constitute the context of our visits. Of course, this is already happening today, but I envision a much more sophisticated delivery vehicle that perceives what I want based on my behavior and is able to enhance the experience in a way that is meaningful for me.

I’ve described this vision to a few very intelligent individuals and some have pushed back stating that my ideas were too far ahead of adoption and that the market wasn’t ready to handle these solutions. This made me stop and think. I’ve even uttered these words myself…The market isn’t ready for it…This technology is great, but no one will know what to do with it…It’s an idea that is ahead of its time… But why do we make excuses for the “market’s” inability to adopt technology? If technology wasn’t ahead of the market, then we would exist in a state of insanely boring un-change. It’s the good ideas that transcend mediocrity and technology that enables change.

A few technologies are currently playing with the capabilities I described, which manifest in some amalgamation of analytics, multivariate delivery [explicitly not testing], and behavioral targeting. Magnify360 is one technology that’s pushing the envelope on this hyped up form of delivering content on the Web. NextStage Evolution is another that’s tackling the challenge in another way. Both combine elements of cognitive behavioral recognition to pick up on emotion, intent and human psychology to deliver pages in a way that is best suited for an individual. If you’re curious, check out NextStage’s game (I only got to page seven). Although it won’t tell you how it works, your way of thinking will become part of the knowledge base. You’ve heard that multiple learning styles exist; some people are visual learners and others logical. These technologies have the ability to pick up on those different styles and present information in corresponding formats. It’s my vision that the Web at large adopts these practices to place information at our fingertips in such a way that is most consumable by us. And delivers content and information that is relevant to not only to our historic profiles, but within the context of our visits. Granted, this is not easy to do and content creation (something I spoke on earlier this week at WebContent2008) requires resources and is often a formidable challenge. So if you’re a technologist; how do you enlist participation and if you’re a practitioner; how do you begin to leverage these revolutionary technologies?

Technology Creators:
One school of thought says that you simply wait for practitioners to accept your technology. In the meantime, show your [insert time-machine-esque technology solution here] to a few innovators, allow them to stumble through the crawl-walk-run stages of development and then spotlight their success as proof of concept. Yet, this method requires the patience to wait years in an age where behavior can advance at the speed of a commercial on Tivo. The innovative few who represent the early adopters however, have a substantial leg up on the competition.

Alternatively, provide some bite-sized access to the solution so that adopters aren’t taking a leap of faith off an uncharted cliff. This has proven out well in other technologies with managed service models. In this way, a slow leak of functionality doesn’t scare away the customer and sets a foundation for further development.

Technology Implementers and Practitioners:
Early technology adopters may tend to view new initiatives as monumental projects that require hundreds of development hours and ongoing management. This mentality fosters a state of paralysis and inaction because of the implications of such an endeavor. Technology adoption can (and does) often happen under duress which usually crescendos after consumers (or senior management) scream for change – or – the Web takes a left turn and alters course (as it’s done with user generated content) forcing compliance. Yet, hasty reactions can make for failed endeavors.

Start somewhere and keep your eye on the deep end. An appetizer perhaps, before eating the entire elephant? Others may leapfrog this stage and go straight to mind-boggling innovation, yet there’s room for many models. Getting your house in order requires looking toward the future. Technology will facilitate the future of Web evolution and if your organization isn’t thinking about how these percipient means of delivering content will come to fruition, then you’re already lagging.

What do you think? Have you ever turned your back on technology because you weren’t ready for it? Are some technologies too far out there?

Yahoo! Analytics

I received a short note in my inbox this morning from Dennis Mortensen, COO of IndexTools. We spoke last week about the solution capabilities, flexibility and future direction of the product, but he must have been grinning all the while. Today he provided a link to his blog announcing that IndexTools would be acquired by Yahoo! Just a small tidbit of juicy information, I’d say.

The financials of the deal were not disclosed, but the bigger question burning up the analytics blogosphere is; What does this acquisition mean to the Web analytics world? First, the IndexTools solution is a robust analytics platform that has been build from the ground up for flexibility and sheer analysis horsepower. Dennis describes the beauty of the tool by stating that it offers less canned analysis, which in turn requires analysts to think more about their data, facilitating discovery. Many argue that IndexTools v9.0 rivals Omniture’s SiteCatalyst at a fraction of the cost. And speculation abounds regarding how Yahoo! will bring this tool to market. My guess is that Y! will devise a “Freemium” solution, where some functionality is offered to small and mid-sized businesses at no cost and incremental services (like the v10.0 Rubix visualization tool) will be available at a premium.

Competition
News of this pending deal will undoubtedly attract the attention of free analytics providers, Google Analytics and Microsoft’s AdCenter. But rather than attempting to undercut their market share by providing yet another free tool for widespread usage, Y!’s Michael Wexler, unofficially states that they’re approaching the market from a different angle. The goal, he describes, is to enable users of Yahoo! products, (development, advertiser, shopping, and end user products) to analyze usage data in a comprehensive way to derive optimal use. He goes on to compliment Google Analytics’ success as a basic tool, but criticizes that it’s not designed for people that “really want to understand their data, nor is it aimed at the variety of ways people can work with Google (it ignores all that API stuff, for example).” Wexler views IndexTools as “the foundational start to understanding not just marketing and its impact on site behavior, but how to understand you online site usage to achieve your goals…”

Ahh, look out Omniture, eh? Despite the indication that Y! is not going after the free market, if this solution is available to any part of the market for free, it will undercut the market share of Google Analytics and MS AdCenter. However, it will not displace the need for enterprise solutions like Omniture, Coremetrics and WebTrends. These companies are building out their marketing optimization platforms, with a key focus on integration. Without buying into the vendor hype about “optimization”, the industry leaders have demonstrated that Web analytics can reside at the center of data analysis for marketing functions. Y! statements from Wexler (although unofficial), make it sound like they may be eyeing the integration component, if only for it’s own services. Other vendors in the marketplace will be forced to keep up in a Web analytics feature arms race or be absorbed and rolled into larger enterprise marketing solutions. But, we’re already seeing this with tools like ClickTracks as integrated solutions within Lyris’ entire marketing suite. And Unica has taken a similar approach by integrating NetInsight analytics with its other enterprise marketing products. The Web analytics industry is evolving, but that does not spell the demise of stand-alone enterprise analytics.

Market Impact
Despite my respect for Eric Peterson, I’m inclined to disagree with his take on the pending acquisition. I do not believe that this will be a “permanent game changer” for Web analytics. Disruptive, yes – but permanently altering no. [For the sake of brevity I’m purposefully ignoring the MS/Yahoo! option.] In the free tool scenario, there’s no historic precedent (with the exception of some general open source examples: e.g., apache, MYSQL, etc) that free tools will displace commercial vendor analytics solutions. If anything, free tools will continue to be utilized concurrently with commercial alternatives for trend verification and specialized uses. Yahoo’s Wexler even confirmed this with his statement about using IndexTools to gain greater perspective on Yahoo! products. There’s nothing to indicate that a Fortune 1000 enterprise would abandon their paid vendor analytics relationship for free tools on the marketplace. If Y! decides not to make the IndexTools solution available for free, then they will certainly make a run at the larger players in the market. But competition is good for all of us and it won’t be anything we haven’t seen before.

I do believe that the availability of free or “Freemium” tools places pressure on existing analytics companies to raise the bar on functionality, usability and actionability of their data. While the free tools will help to spread the ubiquity of analytics data, the ability to correlate, analyze and take action on it will continue to be a driving factor. Here, I agree with Eric that the GAAC (Google's consultant network) will serve to perform this analysis and provides a stellar prospect list for Yahoo! Analytics, but IndexTools already works with over 200 agencies globally to analyze data and take action on it. If anything, the increase of free tools will amplify the opportunity for the prosperous analytics consulting industry and provide plenty of work for all.

In the end, I believe that the impact of this acquisition on the analytics industry will play out as follows:

~ Greater awareness and utilization of web analytics worldwide
~ Higher expectations placed on enterprise players to innovate and deliver
~ Further expansion of ancillary marketing tools as core capabilities offered by existing enterprise analytics vendors

These are exciting times for the Web analytics industry. Lots of changes…lots of controversy…and lots to talk about. My sincere congratulations go out to Dennis and his team at IndexTools, as well as to the beneficiaries at Yahoo!. I believe that this acquisition is a testament to the capabilities of the IndexTools solution and I for one am extremely excited to see how this one plays out.

Has Phorm Gone Too Far?

So what happens when your ISP realizes that the information it’s carrying from Web servers to end users is inherently valuable? UK based Phorm recently revealed products enabling ISPs to capitalize on their respective goldmines of consumer data by selling it to advertisers for behavioral targeting purposes. They succeeded in negotiating deals with three of Britain’s’ largest ISPs (BT, Carphone Warehouse and Virgin Media), which effectively provide broadband service to 70% of all British households. While Phorm maintains that consumer privacy is protected and their service has provisions for end-users to opt out; journalists, bloggers and satirists are voicing their concerns.

My previous posts indicate that I am a strong proponent of onsite tracking and the ability to create greater relevance and a stronger user experience for Web site visitors based on clickstream data. The key emphasis here is greater benefits for the end user. These benefits include:

saving time (by remembering information),
increasing relevance (by recognizing the context of the visit) and,
improving the site (by optimizing pages based on aggregated actions).

JupiterResearch shows that consumers explicitly stated they do not want more advertising. This sentiment exposes a distinction between onsite targeting specific to user actions and behavioral targeting at large, generally used for advertising purposes. The realist in me concedes that I am powerless to stop advertising, so it might as well be targeted for me based on my online actions. Yet, I do feel as if I have some control over what ads I see based on the Web sites I choose to visit, knowing that they are monitoring my actions.

I believe that Phorm is overstepping it bounds by using infrastructure to capture everything that users do online and selling that information for a profit to anyone who cares to target them. In my mind, the frightening precedent-setting issue is that infrastructure companies will now have the ability to alter the experience for end users. In this way, sites that subscribe to the Phorm technology can use completely unrelated information about my online habits in attempts to sell me products or services online. Or worse yet, find out things about me that no single site would ever know and draw conclusions about my personal life.

Examples abound in the medical world, and potential exposure from security breaches or misuse of data could threaten job seekers or public figures. Creator of the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee told BBC News that he did not want his ISP to track which websites he visited.

"I want to know if I look up a whole lot of books about some form of cancer that that's not going to get to my insurance company and I'm going to find my insurance premium is going to go up by 5% because they've figured I'm looking at those books," he said.

I agree that ISP should not have the right to mine customers’ clickstream data, create a comprehensive picture of their actions, preferences and behavior and profit from it in ways that the consumer doesn’t condone or even have any awareness about.

This analogy may be a bit of a stretch, but imagine what could happen when infrastructure monitoring is extended to the offline world. Will the bundled services provider I use which brings Internet, telephone and TV to my home started mining my personal data? Perhaps I make a number of calls to Florida in a given month, will I begin seeing advertisements on TV promoting travel to Florida? What if one infrastructure company starts selling my data to another? Will we get to a point where I flip a light switch in my home and must wait for a pre-roll advertisement to play for low-cost airfare to Florida before I can see well enough to find the toothpaste? What if when I flush my toilet an audio ad for Charmin plays over my home sound system that is delivered wirelessly through my network? These examples may be far-fetched, but they are not too far outside the realm of possibility.

So what’s the solution? I’ll reiterate what I’ve stated in the past regarding personalization and privacy: consumers must be given a choice. Controls need to be in place to enable consumers to opt out of targeting tactics, stop unwanted solicitations and control the information that sites have about them. Consumer privacy is a delicate issue and we’re living in an age where dubious privacy practices abound. It will only take a single breach of online privacy to send the advocates, bloggers and satirists into a tirade. For now, I’d like to help educate the masses about the benefits and realities of targeting and empower consumers to make their own choices.

A Glimpse into the Crystal Ball

I didn't want to let January 2008 slip past without at least one prediction for what this year will hold. Here's my take...

Web measurement technologies will continue to emerge as companies innovate ways to capture data from accredited sources (e.g., widgets, mobile devices, offline activity). These data capturing methods will enhance our knowledge of interaction and engagement, yet force a need for centralized reporting. Expect to see continued consolidation of peripheral marketing technologies (e.g., targeting, testing, optimization) by enterprise analytics vendors. Concurrently, enterprise analytics solutions will step up with integration capabilities to ingest data from disparate sources and provide comparable reporting. This function will bring the web analytics vendors closer to the center of the marketing universe and increase dependence on associated tools and data.