Death of Page View Metrics?
Written by on December 2nd, 2006 in Ajax News.
Steve Rubel says page view metrics have four years to live.
The page view does not offer a suitable way to measure the next generation of web sites. These sites will be built with Ajax, Flash and other interactive technologies that allow the user to conduct affairs all within a single web page - like Gmail or the Google Reader. This eliminates the need to click from one page to another. The widgetization of the web will only accelerate this.
This is a dirty little secret in the advertising business that no one wants to talk about. Media companies love to promote how many page views their properties get. They’ve used the data to build equity. They will fight it tooth and nail to protect it, perhaps by not embracing interactive technologies as quickly as they should. But that’s not going to stop the revolution from coming.
As the page view platform crumbles, there’s going to be a shake out. Everyone is going to scramble to find a metric that helps them compete for ad dollars. Enjoy the show.
The question then becomes: What alternatives will be used? Ryan Stewart suggests more emphasis will be placed on how much time people spend with a website, and also an “interaction rate” - how much interactivity there is (mouseclicks etc).
Another likely trend is rotating ads - ads that change periodically and update according to page context.
Source: Ajaxian
Original Article: http://ajaxian.com/archives/death-of-page-view-metrics