Comments on: New measurement systems need a purpose

By: The attention economy needs a consistent base at Liako.Biz

The attention economy needs a consistent base at Liako.Biz — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 05:19:14 +0000

[...] So let’s start with the most important assumption of all: what are we measuring? As Herbert Simon coined it, and smart guys like Umair, Scott and Chris have extended (at least for my conceptual understanding) – it is called the attention economy. It is important to note however, that the attention economy is an aspect of the Information Sector (see below). And as I described in a previous posting, the attention economy needs a metric for two reasons: monetisation and feedback. [...]

By: Web Strategy by Jeremiah » Concept: Holistic Measurement with LifeStream, AudientStream, and AttentionStream

Sat, 09 Jun 2007 14:10:00 +0000

[...] all know that measurement is such a challenge in the web and media industry, (although Elias suggests we first need a purpose) that’s why I’m paying attention to new methods to [...]

By: binaryplex.com » Blog Archive » Are you hearing me? Who needs a new metric?

Fri, 25 May 2007 23:14:23 +0000

[...] took up the conversation over here as well and raised an interesting point: So before we come up with new measurement systems, lets [...]

By: Life after pageviews: Proposing AudientStream and AttentStream | Truth and Credibility On The Internet

Fri, 18 May 2007 22:29:52 +0000

[...] line if you are interested in helping out or join us on Tangler for real-time chat. UpdateElias has written a follow up discussing the motivations behind collecting this sort of data. I have also responded in his [...]

By: Elias

Elias — Mon, 14 May 2007 14:56:51 +0000

Don’t get me wrong – you’ve made a good attempt! Your proposal is definitely worth exploring. And it’s no small problem – the entire information sector of the economy is pulling its hair out trying to solve the problem.

I think what I am trying to get at – is the advertising aspect, which is what we really care about in the industry – is no longer tied to the traditional means of measuring. I am starting to think a combination of unique visitors, and time spent is the key.

Unique visitors are easily tracked and comparable to any internet-enabled service (just like how a page view is across the web, or at least was before AJAX…), and when combined with user profiling, itwould an advertisers dream. The time spent on the content, could be like a ‘check’ that it’s a real user, or if indeed the user actually viewed the content.

By: Chris Saad

Chris Saad — Mon, 14 May 2007 13:57:09 +0000

I think you are right that it’s important to examine the motivations for doing a thing to help determine usage scenarios and make sure your implementation meets your stated goals.

I agree also that the two main uses of the metrics I proposed would be for advertising and to close the feedback loop.

As part of my description of the AttentStream, however, time spent was just an example. The main point I was trying to make was that an AttentStream could contain all sorts of rich/deep information including, as you suggested, demographic information about the user herself.

Some users could opt in to provide personal information (in effect generating a MyBlogLog style list of readers) or anonymous profile data, or no data at all.

Chris Messina has also suggested to me that it could use OpenID and hCard and APML to achieve some of this.

My main point is that metrics generated by individual playback tools (rather than just by webservers or toolbars), that are then aggregated together, could dramatically improve the quantity and quality of the information we all get to play with.