Cyclops
February 29th, 2008, 05:04 AM
We've all seen the signs. Ding dong the page view is dead... well, dying. First Compete announced that they would be using attention-based web metrics, or Attention Metrics for short. Then Facebook announced that they will move to a similar metric. Perhaps most importantly, Nielsen NetRatings announced last July that they would stop using page views for comparing popularity on the web, and move towards more attention based metrics. Also, Microsoft announced this week the release of a new ROI measurement tool called "engagement mapping".
The reasoning is simple enough: While unique visits and page views are useful in measuring how much incoming traffic a site has, it isn't exactly a good or accurate way of measuring impact or even engagement. You could have high incoming traffic (for example, any site that is hugely successful on social sites) but if there is an incredibly high exit rate and only 30 seconds to a minute spent on the site, the traffic numbers don't mean much (i.e. not all traffic is created equal). Furthermore, the rise of new web technologies such as AJAX which don't require page reloads to refresh elements or modules in a page, or video embeds (such as from YouTube) that allow you to watch a video and then browse related videos without ever refreshing the page, are making page views a mostly inaccurate measure and rendering it largely irrelevant.
Many agree that attention-based metrics are the future. Attention metrics calculate the total time spent on a site or interacting with a page (or element on a page in the case of Facebook applications) as a percentage of total time that people spend online, to measure a site's relative importance on the web. However, there are many others, like the Tel Aviv-based Nuconomy Studio and even Yahoo's Buzz, that believe using factors like comments on posts, ratings from users, number of times something is shared, and clicks on ads as a measure of how popular something is is a better/more accurate metric.
The problem it seems, arises because there is a disconnect between the advertising industry and the publishing industry. The reason why there is an eternal quest for traffic, not only in terms of unique visitors, but also maximizing page views per visitor, is because advertising networks let you in on the basis of how much traffic you're generating, and your eventual income is based on the number of impressions (and clicks).
The advertising industry, which, with over $20 billion at stake, has the most to gain from a more accurate way of determining where to spend their money.
The reasoning is simple enough: While unique visits and page views are useful in measuring how much incoming traffic a site has, it isn't exactly a good or accurate way of measuring impact or even engagement. You could have high incoming traffic (for example, any site that is hugely successful on social sites) but if there is an incredibly high exit rate and only 30 seconds to a minute spent on the site, the traffic numbers don't mean much (i.e. not all traffic is created equal). Furthermore, the rise of new web technologies such as AJAX which don't require page reloads to refresh elements or modules in a page, or video embeds (such as from YouTube) that allow you to watch a video and then browse related videos without ever refreshing the page, are making page views a mostly inaccurate measure and rendering it largely irrelevant.
Many agree that attention-based metrics are the future. Attention metrics calculate the total time spent on a site or interacting with a page (or element on a page in the case of Facebook applications) as a percentage of total time that people spend online, to measure a site's relative importance on the web. However, there are many others, like the Tel Aviv-based Nuconomy Studio and even Yahoo's Buzz, that believe using factors like comments on posts, ratings from users, number of times something is shared, and clicks on ads as a measure of how popular something is is a better/more accurate metric.
The problem it seems, arises because there is a disconnect between the advertising industry and the publishing industry. The reason why there is an eternal quest for traffic, not only in terms of unique visitors, but also maximizing page views per visitor, is because advertising networks let you in on the basis of how much traffic you're generating, and your eventual income is based on the number of impressions (and clicks).
The advertising industry, which, with over $20 billion at stake, has the most to gain from a more accurate way of determining where to spend their money.