2009: The Year of Web Analytics

“Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so.” – Galileo Galilei

I never thought I would quote Galileo while working on social media, but his words speak of its potential.  On Tuesday, I had an engaging conversation with my new colleague, Steve Borsch from Minnov8, about where social media is headed in 2009.  In a brisk 30 minutes we covered Twitter, blogging, my sabbatical, and other web activities.  Steve made a bold prediction, one that still rings in my ears:

2009 will be the year of web analytics.

Why are web analytics important?

Web analytics paint a picture of user participation, engagement, and activity on a given website. In the context of social media, analytics provide community managers  clear visibility of participation in conversations. This data can then be used to glean insights and note trends not otherwise detectable by off-line means. One can identify lead users, and influencers quite easily inside a social space.

Why 2009?

The competencies and platforms required for reliable web analytics are hitting the market with force this year.

Data Creates Markets

Innovation is often challenging to quantify and define.  But, innovation processes that are pushed onto a social media platforms can, in theory, be measured using web analytics. The resulting data creates new markets for discovery, or innovation markets. Conversely, innovation platforms that are not well measured, suffer from lack of data.

Connected Innovation

Social media facilitates connections between people. Innovation processes pushed through social platforms leverage network effects that optimize outcomes. Think crowdsourcing. Markets that function at greater human scale think faster, act faster, and learn faster than non-social markets. Connected markets create high volumes of reliable data, making the innovation organization smarter and better informed.

Galileo’s thinking was profound in many ways. His measurements of the cosmos with regard to time and space created a paradigm shift in the field of physics and created a new innovation marketplace – classical mechanics.

What can you make measurable? It will surely lead to new markets and innovations.

A final thought from a recent Tweet that I stumbled upon:

Innovators who fail fast learn faster. Innovators who learn faster master faster markets. – Jim Carroll

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