Improvements to Alexa

The free traffic ranking tool Alexa has made some improvements to their system: Addition of geography of users. A site’s traffic rank in other countries. Modification to their ‘reach’ data.

Personalization: Now More Personal Than Before

BusinessWeek looks at some new personalization and recommendation tools that are on the horizon. “The goal of the new generation of recommendation tools is to encourage visitors to stay as long as possible on particular sites and, in the process, deliver as many ads as possible to users—without alienating them.”

A Focus on User Experience

David Pogue of the New York Times looks at the redesign effort behind the upcoming release of Microsoft Office. I thought it was interesting how Microsoft took the rare step (for any company) to truly rethink the purpose of the program suite, and look at its usage from a users perspective, instead of a features… Continue reading A Focus on User Experience

Communal, Specialized, and Personalized Experience in Media

Scott Karp askes, “Is News A Fundamentally Shared, Social Experience?” His theory: “Despite all the hype about the “user in control,” purely personalized news may be too much control, a slippery slope that leads to solipsism. The proverbial “water cooler” is symbolic of our fundamental need to share the news, to validate our experiences by… Continue reading Communal, Specialized, and Personalized Experience in Media

Measuring Engagement Online: A New Media Challenge

Robert Scoble looks at the need for better web metrics, focusing on a need to measure “engagement” on a website. He illustrates his point comparing two sites, and what would happen if they added a link to your website on their page. He posits that a site such as The Register would result in few… Continue reading Measuring Engagement Online: A New Media Challenge

Print is Dying

The future is now: “Europeans now spend more of their week online than they do reading newspapers or magazines, according to a report.” While many may scoff at reports like this, it is hard to ignore a trend that will dramatically shape the next generation of information products: “…15-24 year-olds spend most time online, with… Continue reading Print is Dying

Evolution of Trust in Media

A new survey looks at the evolution of trust in the media: “Consumers trust traditional media over blogs, podcasts and other Internet-only publications for information on major news events, like pandemics and natural disasters, according to the results of a recent survey.” This was not surprising to me, because it looks at a very particular… Continue reading Evolution of Trust in Media

Cashing in on the Long Tail

David Berlind has a great post about a recent talk that AOL’s CEO John Miller recently gave about online growth and user generated media, among other topics. Excerpts from David’s summary of the talk: “…the bottom line is that if people are spending more of their time online, and the number of hours in the… Continue reading Cashing in on the Long Tail