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February 7, 2006
Blog measurement baloney
Steve Rubel at MicroPersuasion today tackled the mess that is blog measurement. Statistics vary widely on the number of blogs, blog readership and the ill-conceived unique visit. We need to understand the problem, or problems as they exist. Rubel says current measurements of traffic data or unique are not good indicators of blog use. True. But we also must go beyond the actual measurements.
If I walked into a client’s office and said “Bill, you had 90,000 unique visits to your blog last month,” where’s the value in that? One could argue that if a target had been set (say 75,000), then 15,000 more unique visits beat the target. Success, right? Not quite.
What was said in those blogs? To whom was it said? What was the substance of comments, if any were submitted? How is this information relevant to the client’s business?
This is the inherent flaw in blog measurement products. To-date, they’re nothing more than window dressing and justification for keeping the meter running or getting a foot in the door. Without contextual interpretation and analysis built into the measurement, there’s no value.
Posted by Rich Sharp at February 7, 2006 3:57 PM