The future of the web and the implications for its measurement

Guessing the future of the web is a game that everyone likes to play, but because it's still early days and the web is still volatile, the forecaster normally ends up looking silly. But I'm going to carry on and make some predictions anyway and have a think about what this means for those in the web analytics community.

Although it typically accounts for less that 10% of visits to websites, it's obvious that with the rise of smartphones and tablets the mobile share of web browsing will soon dominate. Handset manufacturers will focus on the devices' power and bringing in new functionality, with more consumer focus being put on the operating system and software. What new apps will be developed? Currently geolocation is the flavour of the month, with Facebook joining in the fun. In my experience the geography data fed back through web analytics tools is not that accurate. With the future of the internet becoming more reliant on geography, this might be something we need to improve. Whilst there are again privacy implications for the improving this accuracy, imagine the potential for finding out where your customers are when browsing your site. Or being able to integrate check-in data with your web analytics data?

With issues around privacy, complaints about its applications and other negative publicity Facebook's seems to be peaking. We regularly hear about the risks of putting all your marketing eggs in the Facebook basket, but does the web analytics industry not risk doing the same thing? However, companies are now not only building relationships with customers within these arenas on fan pages, but monitoring what's said about them within these arenas outside of their fan pages. Sentiment analysis is one area with real potential but is reliant on still-developing artificial intelligence. To me, this is closely linked with the struggle to get to Web 3.0 - the semantic web, where we try to bring more meaning to the content on the internet, and build relationships between data and datasets. Thinking about how we struggle to manage our data now, and how the providers struggle to present it makes it clear how much progress will be required to accurately manage, link and present this new era of data. I think that one of the largest challenges facing our industry is how this is managed, owned and presented in the future, perhaps second only to how we address our current privacy issues.

The majority of the world is still coming to terms with the implications of the "always available" internet, and its potential for increased communication whether it be for good or ill. As the authorities attempt to track illicit online behaviour, there's a growing confusion between monitoring civilians' behaviour and data, and web analytics. Whilst I believe we need to step up to this and nip it in the bud, I would hope that eventually the public takes a more relaxed attitude to tracking, in the way that they do to store loyalty cards, for example. We also need to consider the implications of a generation growing up with the internet as its main resource for entertainment and education. It doesn't seem beyond the realms of possiblility for future companies to be set up to help 18 year olds change their identity and escape their permanently documented youthful transgressions, as hypothesised by Eric Schmidt recently. Might there be an opportunity for building tools to help individuals track their online presence? Whilst the ease with which students can now research information will help them discover more, on the downside it's now easier to plagiarise other's work for assignments and communicate in exams. The recently introduced Tynt Tracer may be further developed to help track illicit copying in this framework, with analytics agencies being set up to monitor other people's sites rather than their own in order to optimise their site.

Indeed, it's this side of analytics that I think we need to be considering now. Whilst the model of working for a company to help optimise their website is the current standard, perhaps we should start thinking outside the box. The internet is now central to more and more people's lives, and whilst this will continue to drive this existing model for those in the web analytics industry, there are opportunities to be had for working on other sites. These could be governmental, educational, looking at analysing external sites for a company, as suggested above, or indeed working for individuals, perhaps to measure the data held on them by other companies? All in all, this shows that the web analytics industry should be kept quite busy keeping up with developments on the internet.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this - am I way off mark? Have I missed something which you think we need to consider?

Improving self-improvement: a call for open-source education

It was simpler in the olden days: you bought the tool, read the documentation and voila! you'd taught yourself web analytics (well, almost). Now, to be at the top of your game in this business you need to be continuously learning. One of the many great reasons for working in the web analytics industry is its rate of development, with lots of new tools and techniques being introduced, and different thoughts abound on how to do the job properly.

There are a variety of learning resources available to the budding web analyst. There are many blogs in the web analytics field debating the latest issues, giving advice and suggesting new ways to tackle old problems (I've listed a few in my blog list to the right, if you're interested). There are also forums, books, and white papers provided by consultancies and vendors, catering to those in the visual learner category. For those auditory learners there are a number of podcasts out there (see also banner to the right). This then leaves the excitingly named kinesthetic learners who learn by doing, which sounds like the perfect opportunity to plug the Analysis Exchange.

So there are a number of places a web analyst can rely on to keep up-to-date with what's going on. But this puts me in mind of the former US Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, talking about known unknowns. These resources are all great at helping you find out information about things you know that exist and you know little about, the known unknowns. But what about the unknown unknowns? How can you get a definitive list of everything that a web analyst should know, to determine if you're on top of it all? I believe that this is something that the WAA is missing. Whilst they currently have the syllabus for the WAA Certification, publishing a list of the areas involved in "Web Analytics" might help define the role of the web analyst better, and help them in their efforts to define themselves too. It could help build a coherent self-referenced set of pages on the intracies of web analytics, with suggestions for the metrics and reports to use for given scenarios. Whilst there's plenty of information out there providing overviews of web analytics and the tools to use, quite often the advice contained glosses over the details, or is one-dimensional, failing to mention other related reports or analyses that could be carried out. This then would become the definitive site for a web analytics education.

The science of web analytics has been around for a while now. So why hasn't this "open-source" educational resource been created yet? Being spoon-fed the information isn't the best way to learn - what good, curious web analyst would want to learn this way? With the current web analytics sphere being very tools-centric it becomes harder to share information as silos develop. And there's also an element of self-interest. Handing out the information on a plate loses business for practioners; it also spoils book sales.

And yet, I still feel that open-source education is the way to move forwards. Whilst the web analytics industry has been around for a while, it's still not mature. The public doesn't trust it, and whilst the majority of companies have at least one web analytics solution on their site, there's little evidence it's being used to its potential, with only the largest or bravest allowing their online strategy to be steered by it. In order to deal with this, we need to grow the number of individuals with the necessary knowledge to become advocates, dedicated to analysing their website on a full time basis. Restricting the ease with which they can learn is a short-termist approach - we need to think about the long term. By growing an army of trained web analysts, the case for the benefits of analytics can be made to those businesses still too small or immature to have made the transition, transforming companies from being satisfied with a list of their top 10 pages to ones competing on analytics, to paraphrase Stephane Hamel's OAMM model. As a critical mass of sites that truly use analytics is reached, the remainder will have to engage or die. Competition breeds improvements in techniques and ideas. Then, as the world learns that sophisticated web analytics requires sufficient resourcing, the opportunity for consulting services and more specialist knowledge will grow, and the availability of information on the internet becomes irrelevant. No-one teaches themselves accountancy - they hire an accountant. By sharing now, we can create the demand for tomorrow.

A Levels and KPIs - an analogy

Today is A-level results day in the UK, when high school students find out if they've got the grades to go to university. Traditionally this is the day the media go to town to bash students or standards, depending on your view point. Students become angry that society has deemed them unworthy of the high grades they get, and society finds it hard to believe the ubiquitous A grades that are handed out are really reflective of the students' understanding.

In my mind there are two clear problems with A level results here - the grading classification itself and how students are being taught, and both these issues rear their heads in the web analytics world.

Firstly, the grading. Here in the UK A levels are marked from A to E, with a new A* grade being introduced this year to try and distinguish the really bright students from the bright ones. However, as more and more students receive the better grades as the years pass, it becomes hard to distinguish the brighter students from the bright - the metric isn't transparent. This is a problem that many analysts try to overcome in their reporting. If the KPI doesn't clearly indicate what's going on, it's going to be hard to take action. Knowing that 50% of your visitors viewed 3 or more pages of your site, and are thus "engaged" doesn't help too much. Knowing the distribution of page views per visits allows you to isolate the extreme cases, and determine who's really ploughing through your site compared to those who just view three pages. In the case of A levels, replacing the grading classification with a simple % scoring system would allow universities to see a more accurate reflection of the students abilities, and compare them with others.

Secondly, metric manipulation. A common complaint is that students are being taught to pass exams, rather than being taught to broaden their knowledge of a subject. Complaints abound that first year university students are unable to string a sentence together or display an understanding of basic numeracy, but they do have a lot of A grades to their name. Back in the world of Web Analytics this manipulation often rears its head too, for example on content sites, where articles are split into multiple pages requiring the reader to click on links to view the next page, thus generating extra page views. This not only proves frustrating for the the visitor, but also implies an artificially high level of engagement with the site.

Of course KPIs are essential in the world of web analytics - they're our bread and butter. And whilst we strive to improve our sites through the monitoring of these KPIs, we need to be bear some things in mind. A KPI is useless unless it accurately depicts the outcomes you're trying to monitor. And manipulating metrics is essentially cheating. And as our Mums all told us, when you cheat, you're only cheating yourself.

Bridging the Numerati-Ignoscenti tracking divide?

I've just finished reading an informative book on the likes of us - "They've got your number" by Stephen Baker. The book talks about the Numerati - "mathematicians who are mapping our behaviour" in various industries, not just e-commerce, for example in the workplace, in politics, blogging and healthcare. There were a number of themes in the book, none of which came as a surprise. For example, Baker talks about the large amounts of data available in each scenario, and how powerful mathematical tools and knowledgable analysts are required to not only derive insight but the correct interpretation of this data. In the chapter on terrorism he pointed out the importance that the NSA (or GCHQ) analysis is correct first time; in other industries as Avinash likes to point out, we can (and should) learn from our mistakes; indeed, failing makes success easier.

Whilst Baker's book didn't try and paint a picture of illicit snooping and stir up the usual scare stories, it did get me thinking about how this subject is perceived by the general public. There is a lot of information available on internet technology, and more of this is filtering into the public arena. For example, browser selection is becoming more sophisticated; whereas a couple of years ago Firefox was the preserve of net geeks, now my parents are using it - Microsoft's share of the market is eroding. But it's not just browser choice that people are becoming more au fait with; it's the contents of the options menu within the browser, and with it cookie blocking, then private browsing and opt-out addons.

Whilst we should respect the wish for privacy of those who've chosen to block cookies, adopt private browsing or install these addons, we should not be scared of making the case for tracking so that these people have all the facts at their disposal before they make their decision. As people become more aware of the perceived murky world of corporate tracking, without a clear counter-argument being proposed it's easy for the public to assume it's of no benefit to them, or worse. And yet, one of the most popular websites on the planet is in that position precisely because of its tracking. People agree that Amazon is a great site, and are impressed by its cross-selling abilities and its recommendations based on their search history (both on and off the site). It surely shouldn't be hard to use this to sell the benefits of tagging a site. Whilst it's becoming fashionable to talk about how we live in a "Big Brother" society with constant surveillance, be it CCTV or online tracking, it should be possible to make the distinction between a true "Big Brother" society whereby monitoring takes place to crush dissent, and one which is built to help people do what they want to on a website more effectively.

So how to do we go about getting rid of this "Big Brother" image before the battle's lost?
1.Site Transparency. A clearly stated (i.e. not legal speak) and up-front privacy policy page (i.e not hidden away in the smallest font possible somewhere inaccessible), explaining the methods used and the information gleaned.
2. Present a clear case to the public. Whilst the case is clear, how it should be communicated is less so. Is this something for the WAA to do? The case needs to be made globally, and whilst they have a presence across many countries, this is something which needs to get into the living rooms of people across the world. Web analytics is being discussed in German and American parliaments at the moment; maybe petitioning your local polititian to raise a question could bring it into the public domain. What is clear is that the internet is a global phenomenon, and, as with policing it, lobbying it is hard to do.
3. Better education. In a previous post I discussed the importance of educating children in the internet. IT is an important topic, and the learning about using the internet is a major part of it, be it tracking, site construction or communication. Informing young people of all the facts at an early age is the best way to remove this image, if a slightly long-termist one...
4. Improve your site! Earn the right to stop people deleting your cookies - people would be more reluctant to delete their cookies to a site if they got an Amazon experience from it.

So there we have it, my thoughts on how we can turn the ignoscenti into the cognoscenti. Have I left anything out? I'd love to hear your comments.

Education in web analytics: Teaching kids how to measure the internet proper

Following my previous post on education for those in the web analytics industry, I thought I'd have a look at the opportunites for those still in full-time education to develop the skills to enter the industry.

Recent events have encouraged me to take a more active interest in the education system, and although I'd never encourage my children to follow my career just for the sake of it, I've been thinking about which courses I would recommend to a student to develop the necessary skills and knowledge to be a success in the digital measurement industry. In my opinion, there are two sides to this. The first is a generic internet education, which I would hope would be included in the "standard" ICT courses (for those in the UK) up-to and including GCSE level.

Delving into the internet section of an ICT course, children would need to be made aware of general internet skills. Being taught about the privacy and safety implications of using the internet should be as important as the Green Cross Code. I would also consider a basic understanding of how websites are built, covering coding and infrastructure to be an important part of any ICT course. Then, more specifically related to the web analytics area, a discussion of the way sites are tracked; rather than looking at it from the standard "all tracking is evil and intrusive" perspective, considering why businesses do it, and how it could be beneficial to the customer when executed correctly. One would also hope this would also be covered in any Business Studies course available today. Finally, it would be desirable if they covered internet terminology so that once and for all people could distinguish between visits and hits! Obviously these topics would likely constitute a module or part of one in a larger ICT course, but imagine how much better the world would be if all youngsters were taught this...

The second of the two key areas that a student would need schooling in relates to analytical nature of the role. Assuming that the student had covered the more generic knowledge just discussed, they would then need to build on that with both further education and development. Of course, as before, there's no way that a course specifically tailored to web analytics would exist at this level, but rather the student would need a combination of broader courses to provide the more detailed knowledge required. These courses might include statistics (for obvious reasons), with a course in econometrics helping to teach them about models and statistical tests, and a course in marketing to give them the background of the problems they'll be looking to solve in the future. However, being a web analyst requires more than a knowledge of data manipulation and sales; a critical and curious mind which questions assumptions and asks the right questions is paramount. No one course can create this, but something which encourages detailed analysis and looking at an argument from multiple angles would help; perhaps philosophy or history?

Once they've got this far they'd have a good idea of the theory behind the internet, and the necessary skills set to analyse and ask questions of the data. All they'd need then is some hands-on experience of the role itself - some pre-on-the-job training. And this is where the innovative Analysis Exchange comes in, linking students, mentors and donors (non-profit and NGO websites). The mentors provide the tuition to the student, who provides a piece of analysis to a grateful charitable website. Not only does this give students a fantastic opportunity to both learn and shine, but due to the close-knit nature of the web analytics community, it gives them a great way to advertise their skills on completion of the project.

So there you go kids - that's how to get into the #measure industry. For those of you already in the industry, what would you recommend to an aspiring student?

Education in web analytics: Experience vs qualifications

This is the first of a couple of posts that loosely fit under the category of education in the web analytics field. This one looks at some of the courses and qualifications out there for web analysts, and the benefits of them versus everyday experience.

There are a number of courses that are available to web analysts looking to improve their knowledge. One of the most well-known is the UBC Award of Achievement in Web Analytics. Whilst being a comprehensive course, it's geared towards people with little prior knowledge of the topic, with the first module named an "Introduction to Web Analytics". There is also an extension course, the Web Intelligence Certificate from the UBC and UC Irvine Extension, which as a prerequisite requires the UBC Award of Achievement to have been completed, and focuses on coursework.

The WAA Base Camp consists of two days of training which allows the student to get a "solid foundation of online marketing analytics knowledge and authoritative course material in a workshop environment". Unfortunately, as with a lot of WAA content, it seems to be very US-centric, with no courses available outside of North America this year, and no previous workshops outside of there since September 2008.

One complaint about why people don't join the WAA is that there's no proof of the member's quality. This has been answered by the WAA with new certification. There's been some discussion about its validity, its availability to non-WAA members and concern around pricing and how to take it - see here for an example. The WAA have responded to these in attempt to make the issue clear. There's general agreement that it's tough, with two to three years of experience required; its aim is to test your analysis skills rather than your knowledge of a particular analytics package, and it has a quasi-MBA slant to it. In a recent post Stéphane Hamel discusses the benefits of taking the test.

The Google Analytics IQ test is proving to be quite popular. So much so that they've recently had to make it tougher, raising the pass rate to 80%. Obviously this is tied to one package, and has an 18 month shelf life.

There seems to be agreement that certification is better for those earlier on in their careers. Those who've been in the industry longer have less need to demonstrate and prove their skills. However, those with experience can easily be siloed - all too often I've seen adverts for web analyst positions which talk more about the need for experience with a particular analytics package, rather than concentrating on the skills required to do the job properly. Having a qualification like the WAA certification would demonstrate your ability to bring the necessary mindset and skills to the role to successfully carry it out. The individal could show their knowledge of the technical, marketing and statistical skill sets required for this job, rather than have to spell it out on a CV. The technical knowledge one would have acquired through gaining the qualification would go a long way to helping out with any package-specific issues that may be faced in a new role.

The downside is that many of these qualifications are expensive (especially if you have to travel to take them as Steve Jackson notes in his afore-referenced blogpost). But labour economics dictates that as long as prospective employers can be assured of the quality of the test, this should only go to highlight the candidate's quality (and self-belief) - that they were willing and confident enough to invest in themselves to set themselves apart from the market. That the qualification has to be re-taken regularly for such a changing market would also demonstrate the candidate's quality.

Finally, the obligatory UK naval-gazing section. Whilst in the US where there is more knowledge about web analytics industry, here in Blighty fewer companies and managers are familiar with it. They may well be aware of what a web analyst does and how they can help provide insight and drive action etc (although possibly not to the extent a similar position in the States would), but I suspect they wouldn't be so familiar with the role of the WAA, or have any knowledge of the varying types of qualifications out there. This then, for now, lessens the impact of obtaining one of these qualifications on this side of the pond, although hopefully this will change soon.