Replacing pageviews and unique visitors: Sensible metrics with Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and Furl just impossible

by Urs E. Gattiker on 2008/06/24 · 3 comments 1 views

in a analytics taking action,b why benchmark analytics

    No amount of statistical work will overcome the various inadequacies in the quality of data collected and how inappropriate these might be for measuring success with Twitter, blogging, Facebook or Xing.
    Most often when ranking social media, no specific model is specified in advance. Instead, data suggest a model that is often quite vague to begin with.
    Over-reliance on simple-minded statistics in assessing the impact of social media is a challenge. We must find ways to better understand ranking and statistical tools and augment these with other means of assessment.
    Find out – read on we tell you the story.

Ever more we no longer just worry about the usability of a web site such as MySpace or Facebook. Usability helps to find out what possible problems could be a reason why vonersions are not happening at the rate projected. Web 2.0 or Web 3.0 metrics help in identifying the scope and cost of the problem, as well as how much earnings could be increased by resolving the issue.

Putting usability assessment and Web 3.0 metrics together supports your efforts in increasing your corporation’s profitability when it comes to its social media activities.

Unfortunately, we have been hung up on using single indicators and these may often be based on simple-minded statistics as discussed here:

CEO-suite blogger, Facebook, Furl, LinkedIn, MySpace, Twitter – warning

As the above argues, indicators may appear accurate, objective and simple, the rarely if ever are. Numbers are not inherently better than sound judgments. Find out more here:

Report of the IMU/IMS/ICIAM joint Committee on Quantitative Assessment of Research (June 11, 2008). Published by the International Council for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, the International Mathematical Union and the Insitute of Mathematical Statistics, available online

What is your opinion, submit your comments, critique or ideas below.

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6 steps to get started in measurement of social media activities If it is good enough for Warren Buffett, what about you?

And no, maybe we can create sensible statistics. However, like with one consulting with experts when practicing  Web 3.0 work,  surely one ought to consult with statisticians when practicing statistics.

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  • http://www.myspace.com/jonathangibbs Jonathan Gibbs

    Valid points all.

    And to make matters worse, there are so many users trying to game the system and write thehir own ticket to fame. To illustrate, people auto-refeshing their own YouTube videos from multiple computers/IPs, all to increase numbers. With such things it becomes even MORE of an impossible task to trust the numbers.

    I’ll be real interested to see what they can come up with in the future to guage the impact of things released via the social web.

  • Urs E. Gattiker

    Dear Jonathan
    Thanks for the pointer nice additional dimension I forgot to include. This is why we try to go beyond the most obvious things with My.ComMetrics.com

    Incidentally, have a look Unique visitors – how to measure and make sense where I provide more recent thoughts on these issues.

    Look forward to your next helpful comment.

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