Internet Indicators

Reference: "Web metrics: Many ways to skin a cat"
The Economist, November 29th 2007

The article discusses the use of "hits", "visitors" and "time on page" as indicators of Internet use. All have been used by those buying Internet advertising.

As websites, and especially those using AJAX, become more interactive, advertisers are therefore interested in other measures. “Duration” and “time spent”, for instance, suggest how long one or more people were interacting with a page, which in turn hints at how “engaged”, or alert, they were. Using these criteria, social-networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace (part of Fox Interactive Media in the chart) suddenly look attractive.

Years ago as a member of an NAS panel I coauthored Internet Counts, a report of the National Academy of Sciences. Since that time I have thought a fair amount about indicators. It seems to be that the basic issue is the cost and benefits from information. A lot of information about website use is very cheap to obtain, and some that would be most beneficial is hard and expensive to obtain. You would like to know which dollar of advertising pays the most in sales, and none of the indicators I know of give that information. Still, I bet that the guys who do media analysis can do a pretty good job at directing spending on media research, and media on spending on advertising.