We analysts have learned to navigate the digital ecosystem and become digital citizens. The digital ecosystem is amazing – it constantly changes and evolves with time. Two emerging trends in the digital ecosystem include the growth of cell phones, and the use of widgets to get your website content onto other sites.

The growth of cell phones is one of the main digital trends today. I remember my first cell phone … it started as a cell phone, then mutated into a cell phone / computer, which surfed the web, allowed me to listen to music, and watch videos.

One of the remarkable results of the growth of cell phones is digital signage. It pioneered as a marketing ploy in South Korea and Japan. Digital signage is used to encourage sales. An example of this is QR (Quick Response). It’s basically a bar code. You must have noticed bar codes on items at grocery stores? Once the cashier scans it, it provides pricing data.

However, in Quick Response a bar code provides 200 to 300 times more data. A Korean / Japanese customer photographs the bar code via their camera / browser phone, and then is given the option to open a website on their camera / browser phone.

The second emerging trend in the digital ecosystem are widgets. They allow web sites to move away from the traditional model of getting traffic to your website. Instead widgets, give you mobility, allowing you to put your content on other web sites, user pages, and blogs.

The cool thing about widgets is they allow users the opportunity to experience a site without visiting it. Once a user downloads a widget, it moves to the user’s computer, web site, or blog.

A widget is a piece of dynamic content. It’s usually around 150 * 300 pixels. A widget is written in Flash or JavaScript. Widgets are popular because of the value they provide to their users. Widgets are interactive, and allow users to try them out prior to downloading them. Well designed widgets evolve and adapt, and are updated by their designers to reflect user interests and preferences.

From an analytics point of view digital is cool. Cell / computer phones, and widgets have digital DNA which allows us to track activity from them. There are a lot of metrics available, the challenge for web analysts is to determine what to track.

25-Sep-08 12:00 PM
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Emerging Digital Trends impacting Web Analytics

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