Web 2.0 Calendar system for sale: No usage data provided
File this under “more evidence that Web 2.0 is sadly lacking measurement” … while some enterprising young folks are putting their AJAX calendar application (Kiko) up for sale on eBay and using Google Analytics to show that people are visiting the web site, they’re apparently not able to measure the application’s actual use using the existing page view paradigm.
From their eBay listing:
Kiko traffic has been steady at around 40k visitors / month. Here is a screenshot of our Google Analytics stats over the past month (Note: the Pageviews stats are somewhat misleading, as the entire application is only a single pageview per user)
While it’s great that they have 40K visitors per month one must wonder whether those visitors are actually using the calendar application or they’re simply kicking tires. This again is the fundamental reason behind my call for Web 2.0 measurement standards; if you were considering paying $50,000 for an AJAX application, wouldn’t you want to know how much people were using it, what they were doing with it, whether they used it frequently or infrequently, etc.?
Maybe not. Maybe you’d just be so in love with the idea of owning something AJAX-y and Web 2.0-y that you’d let the whole “measurement void” thing slide.
(Thanks to Brett Crosby from Google Analytics for the head’s up!)
LJ added the following ...
That looking cool often appears to come before being profitable is nothing new. Businesses have long created cool campaigns they haven’t properly measured. However, I do see that there is a difference depending on if the problem lies in mindset or technology. I expect to see some exciting development within the next year.