by Bill Ives
February 3, 2010 at 11:36 am · Filed under
Web 2.0
I am attending the Webtrends Engage 2010 event in New Orleans. I am covering some of the sessions on my Portals and KM blog. Yesterday, I had a chance to speak with the Webtrends CEO, Alex Yoder, on an individual basis. We went over some of the major directions for the company. Alex started by saying their core principle was openness. They are culturally open as a company. They provide direct access to everyone, including himself.
As part of this directive of openness they recently provided access to their knowledge base to the general public. This included how-to-dos for their products, bugs, fixes and other company information that had been behind a firewall and only previously accessible to customers. Now it is available to anyone on the Webtrends site.
They are also sharing the lessons that they have learned inside their company. Alex said that they deal with many of the same issues that their clients face so they can learn from each other. This sharing also helps to build a stronger sense of community with their clients.
On the technology side they partner with a number of providers to round out their capabilities. These include Radian 6 on the front end and Teradata on the back end. Alex said that things are moving too fast for one firm to say that they can do everything. It is often better to partner than to build.
They are also open from a technology perspective. They provide open APIs for both data extraction and data collection, one of the few firms to do both. On the data extraction side they allow for integration of their data into other tools within the enterprise. This helps Web analytics to get out of silos and into executive dashboards for greater visibility. Their data on customer activity can also go into CRM systems to allow for more complete customer records. Their findings can also trigger action-based emails to employees to promote proper responses.
On the data collection side Webtrends can incorporate data where Javascript cannot go. They can look at anything that is digital, such as the records of in-store transactions, to provide a complete record of customer activity. They can also work with certain mobile devices.
Looking in the future Alex said that Webtrends will continue to further optimize customer interactions. There is a lot of marketing money flowing from traditional media into social media. Webtrends wants to expand its support in this growing space. Mobile devices is another growth area where they are working to enhance their offerings. As marketing people need to work across a broader array of channels, Webtrends wants to provide for better campaign management and coordination across all of these channels.
Alex brought up gaming consoles as another device where there is both marketing and analytic possibilities. He recently received a Playstation3 for Christmas. It has a large hard drive and an Internet browser. He can do email and chat and play games remotely with others. Communities are developing around these games and these communities will be fruitful targets for related marketing activities.
Alex said that his gaming console has also taken away the need for cable TV as he can get what he wants online. I have many friends who have also dropped cable and use their laptop for TV through services such as Hulu. When people watch TV through an online device there is much greater opportunity to collect data and interact with viewers than the traditional TV set. Alex said that the gaming console will likely become a channel for direct response ads in the near future. It already has some ads and related product information.
The same injection of intelligence is occurring as people switch to Kindles and other online readers such as the new Apple iPad. When you drop a print newspaper on a front door you have no way of tracking what people do with it. With online readers there is a whole range of data collection opportunities.
Alex closed by saying that Webtrends is defined by its relationships. These include customer relationships, relationships with the broader community, and the relationships that its customers establish with their customers. Having grown up in New Orleans I added that people here really appreciate the help that comes through bringing events like Engage to their city. Alex said that this event is also part of their plan to better support communities. They have moved a number of the Engage activities out of the hotel and into the city.
by Bill Ives
February 1, 2010 at 3:58 am · Filed under
Web 2.0
On January 27 Cisco announced the launch of the second I-Prize global innovation contest where entrepreneurs worldwide can collaborate and submit proposals for Cisco’s next billion-dollar business idea. I wrote about the first contest (see: Cisco I-Prize – Mining the Web and the World for Innovation) and the results. Following the first I-Prize, which drew nearly 2,500 entrepreneurs, this year participants will have access to an expanded portfolio of Cisco collaboration solutions to build on as they share their ideas with others globally. The winning team will be eligible for $250,000 in prize money.
There are four main categories as described by Cisco:
The future of work: Use the power of the network to bring together customers, suppliers and associates to propose solutions that will change the way companies and organizations do business.
The connected life: Showcase technological advancements that will dramatically improve living conditions and culture. This category will require people to envision a life of seamless connectivity.
New ways to learn: Create innovative solutions that will transform when, where and how people learn.
The future of entertainment: Devise next-generation solutions that will change how people play.
I like their topics. I-Prize contest participants will be able to use the following Cisco collaboration tools:
Cisco Show and Share, a social video community where contest participants can record, edit and share video; comment, rate and tag interesting content; and use speech-to-text translation for easy video search and viewing.
Cisco Pulse, a search platform that dynamically tags content as it crosses the network, allowing contest participants to accurately locate and rapidly connect with the best available experts and information on a particular topic.
Cisco WebEx™, an online meeting platform for audio and Web conferencing that enables users to share documents and desktops in real time.
Cisco TelePresence™, an immersive, virtual meeting experience that combines innovative real-time video, audio and interactive technologies to give people in distributed global locations a wide variety of face-to-face collaboration experiences.
This is a good way for Cisco to gain more exposure for its collaboration suite. I-Prize participants will also have access to a management platform, powered by Spigit, which enables participants to buy and sell ideas on an open market (see: Innovating Through Market Games with Spigit). The idea market lets contest participants establish the value of their ideas through trades. Shares of ideas are purchased with virtual currency awarded to participants based on the value of their contributions on the platform. This is the same platform being used by the upcoming Enterprise 2.0 conference to help participants and others evaluate potential sessions.
This program seems to be a win-win for Cisco as they get to harvest new ideas, showcase an innovative crowd-sourcing program, as well as feature their collaboration products.
by Bill Ives
January 26, 2010 at 3:31 am · Filed under
Web 2.0
Alterian conducted its seventh annual survey on online marketing. This year’s sample covered 1068 marketing professionals worldwide. It found that 66 percent of respondents will be investing in social media marketing in the next 12 months. Where is the money coming from in an ear of tight budgets? The survey found that 40 percent of those investing in social media marketing said they would be shifting more than a fifth of their traditional direct marketing budget towards funding their social media marketing activities. This supports other statistics from the Alterian survey that found that the majority of respondents (67 percent) feel social media is either ‘increasingly important’ or ‘critical to success.’
The survey also found that 36 percent of respondents are investing in social media monitoring and analysis tools. It is a growing field and I have discussed a number of them on this blog. This is a significant percentage, considering the maturity of the channel. It appears to reflect a growing understanding that a social media marketing strategy needs to be based on listening to customers and prospects and its ROI needs to be measured. However, the 64 percent who are not planning this investment may be left behind, as you need to see what impact your efforts achieve, as well as what customers are saying about you.
The research also explored the importance of customer engagement, a critical component to success in the opinion of many, a view I share. It found that over half of respondents (51 percent) are placing a ‘fair’ or ‘significant’ amount of effort on moving from a campaign-centric direct marketing model towards multi-channel customer engagement – in fact only 7 percent are making no effort at all. This is good news.
The Web and social media continues to change marketing, whether it is for products or politicians. The same holds for traditional news media as many long time news providers have found out too late. It appears that some marketing professionals have awakened to this change and are making steps to take advantage of it. 2010 will be an interesting year for business applications of social media, both inside and outside the enterprise.
by Bill Ives
January 22, 2010 at 3:34 am · Filed under
Web 2.0
I have written about semantic technology and its providers a good bit on this and other blogs (see for example: Is Semantic Technology Real?) so I was interested to see how Monster.com was applying it. I spoke with Javid Muhammedali, their Director of Product Management on their efforts.
Javid started with some of the problems with key word search in the recruitment field. All words are given equal weight, you need complex Boolean logic to narrow down results, the search engine cannot distinguish between recent and dated information,,the search engine does not understand the meaning of words or their context, and you often have to sift through irrelevant results. This makes sense and I see it all the time in many contexts.
The literal nature of matches makes it necessary to look for many variations on a way to express something. Javid showed a three-part search that would need over 10,000 combinations to be fully covered.
Javid explained two ways that semantic search can help. First, it can understand the meaning of words and use the context to help determine meaning. Second, it understands the hierarchy of concepts in such areas as job titles, skills, industries, etc. The context allows it to understand the different uses of a word like, Washington, when used in an address, school, company, person, etc. This context comes from the immediately connected words (e.g., Ave., Mutual, University, and the location within a document (e.g., contact information, education).
The Monster semantic search engine can be used to search documents that are uploaded, as well as resumes created with their resume builder. The search engine is not taught literal rules but rather assigns weights to the various aspects being searched on based on past experience and customer feedback. As part of the process of fine tuning the search engine, they assign resumes to both the tool and to a panel of seasoned recruiters and made comparisons. Adjustments were made to the tool to better aligned with the expert human logic. For example, rare, but useful, skills were identified and given greater weighting than common skills.
Javid did some sample candidate searches. The results are rank ordered with the rationale clearly provided. It then distills the key points and allows you to compare candidates on these points. It also understands the connections between filters such as roles and companies and makes adjustments.
The goal is to narrow down a list of thousands or even hundreds of possible candidates to a few dozen that a person that easily sort through and make the final judgment on. The comparison feature comes in very handy once you get to this stage. While we looked at the candidate results for those with jobs, the same approach is available for job seekers.
The results have been promising so far. Monster has found a 65% time savings using the semantic Power Resume Search compared to keyword-based search engines. There has also been a 150% increase in the number of qualified candidates found. In this application, semantic search seems both real and useful.
Monster is also attempting to have more user input through social media type features. You can rate candidates as a user such like many travel sites. Javid said that the take-up on this has been slow. A challenge for him in the coming year is to figure out how to increase the engagement with these ratings. This is a useful goal and I would suggest looking at what other successful social media efforts have done.
by Bill Ives
January 19, 2010 at 3:27 am · Filed under
Web 2.0
Alpha Software has been in the business of supporting software development since the 1980s. I covered them before on this blog (see: Alpha Software Provides Tools to Create Comprehensive Online Databases). Recently caught up again with Richard Rabins, their CEO, on the latest release. Richard said that since the Web has matured and Web 2.0 has raised expectations for the performance of Web apps, many more firms are switching their client server applications to AJAX based Web apps. However, this is not usually an easy task as to providing rich applications with performance that users have come to expect requires a lot of expertise. It requires AJAX expertise and knowledge of Javascript, Server side scripting, CSS, the DOM, XML, various browsers and other factors.
Alpha Five v10 is designed to reduce the effort and development times for these rich applications by offering what they call, CodeLess Ajax.™ Richard walked me through some examples of building AJAX apps by simple drag and drop methods. This seemed accessible for a non-coder such as myself. You specify the design, components, and other factors of the application and Alpha generates the code behind the scenes.
There is also the option to do add JavaScript coding for advanced components and Alpha provides ties to a number of third party JavaScript libraries. You can also use Xbasic, REST Servicesor SQL languages, Genies and Xdialogs, the Report Builder, the Security Framework, and other tools for extensions. In addition to Codeless Ajax™ technology, Alpha Five Version 10 has nearly 80 other new features, all of which are designed to help programmers build high-performance apps. Videos are available here
Richard showed me a sample application for an insurance company that was built with Alpha Five. You can get a quote for your home owner’s policy in seconds. I know from work in this space and personal experience that that is not an easy task as their quite a few issues to underwrite such policies. It usually takes several weeks so this firm is getting a significant competitive edge.
Another application dealt with patient notification when doctors were running late. It drew data from multiple sources and acted as a mashup in this sense. Just as mashups have helped speed the development of Web apps, a code generation tools such as Alpha Five hold’s great promise to help companies transition to today’s Web environment.
I asked about their market strategy and Richard said they initially started simply selling the tool. They found that many companies wanted Alpha to use the capabilities of Alpha Five to build apps for less cost and time rather than using the tool themselves. I experienced similar issue with CBT tools in the 80s. Richard said they do some of this custom development internally to continue to refine the tool through their first hand experience. They have also created a group of trusted third party developers to help with the task.
The company is privately held, and based in the Boston area at Burlington, Mass. Their Alpha Software blog offers more on what they are doing.
by Bill Ives
January 12, 2010 at 3:13 am · Filed under
Web 2.0
Webtrends is an enterprise customer intelligence company that offers web analytics and optimization along with a number of related services. This is a market space I have been looking into a bit and was interested to learn more about they are doing. I recently spoke with Jascha Kaykas-Wolff, VP of Marketing at Webtrends. Jascha said that they have the ability to let you look at wide range of data about your customers actions and comments, anything that is digital. This includes web site behavior and social media monitoring, along with offline activity such as kiosks and even in-store transactions. I like the fact that they are taking advantage of the digital nature of data to move beyond web-based reporting to aggregate offline behavior into the mix.
Their social media monitoring is provided through a partnership with Radian6, a firm I have written about before here (see: Radian6 – Monitoring Social Media). In addition to having the social media data from Radian6 aggregated with all other Webtrends customer data sources, Webtrends offers professional services to help you set up your social media profiles and filters. Their data aggregation and integration extends beyond collection to analysis and optimization. You can use the analytics within Webtrends or extend this through their partnership with Teradata to take the data into your enterprise data warehouse for more comprehensive business intelligence. Their professional services group can also help you make better use of this data for business decisions.
There are several other new capabilities through the Fall 2009 release of their flagship product, Analytics 9. They have gone real time and now offer alerts and notifications when key web site metrics reach, or fail to reach, your pre-determined goals. Alerts can prompt the user at log-in and be delivered via a variety of means including e-mail, authenticated RSS feed, Twitter direct message, SMS, and/or through their iPhone app. You can compare the real time results with data from the previous 24 hours or the current day. They have plans for other mobile phone apps. You can see a sample iPhone screen below.
Jascha said that the introduction of Google Analytics a few years ago was a boost to their industry as it made analytics more visible. At the same time, most enterprise companies found they wanted more that Google Analytics and other free services provide. The same holds true for Google Alerts. I have certainly found this to be true, even for an enterprise of one such as myself, especially on the alerts side. I also like the real time nature of the alerts.
I recently covered the Forrester report on text analytics as way to dig deeper into data (see: Text Analytics Offers a Discovery Channel to Make Better Sense of Content). I asked Jascha about this capability. He said that Webtrends has partnerships with Autonomy, Endeca, and FAST (Microsoft) when companies want to integrate this capability into their customer intelligence efforts.
Analytics 9 is offered as both a cloud service and through an on-premise version for those who need the feeling of added security, such as several of their government clients. They have several other product offerings. Visitor Data Mart provides data from the individual customer perspective. While Analytics 9 aggregates your company related data, Visitor Mart allows you to drill down to see how a specific customer is interacting with your company. They also offer optimization services through Optimize. It allows you to set up experiments on your web assets, review the results, and will make adjustments automtically. In addition, their Ad Director offering helps you make intelligent online ad purchases and optimized your PPC campaigns across all the major search engines such as Bing, Google, and Yahoo.
I asked Jascha about their target users given the comprehensive nature of Analytics 9. He said there are three types. Webtrends has been around for quite a while in Web years. First, they still have many IT buyers from the days when IT largely set up and ran web sites. In the past few years they have added many marketing professionals. To better serve this group they have enhanced their interface and provided better data visualization capabilities. The third user group is the new breed of highly specialized and tech savvy marketing people who focus on customer intelligence. Here is where the more comprehensive capabilities and the Webtrends partnerships come into greater play. Below is a sample data visualization screen.
Here is another data visualization screen that shows some of the real-time nature of results.
I think all of these features are very useful. The thing that impresses me the most is the pulling together of all available digital data on the front end, whether it is online or offline and then the use of both online and offline analytic tools on the backend. To me this ability to go beyond conventional ways of thinking about data sources shows that the focus is on the business issues rather than the tools. Webtrends is a company that has been around for quite a while and experienced a number of technologies so this might help expand this thinking. They have a user conference coming up Feb 1 – 3 in my favorite city, New Orleans.
by Bill Ives
January 7, 2010 at 3:13 am · Filed under
Web 2.0
Last July Alterian acquired Techrigy and its SM2 social media monitoring solution. I have used Techrigy, liked it, and wrote about them on this blog (see Techrigy Provides Comprehensive Social Media Monitoring). So I was interested to speak with Joe Stanhope, Vice President of Platform Strategy, Alterian, about where they are taking SM2. The 4.3 release of SM2 focuses on enhanced performance and scalability through more than 140 updates in architecture design, infrastructure investments and new features.
Joe said that Alterian has been focusing more on the execution side of enterprise marketing and purchased Techrigy to enhance their analytics capabilities to complement the execution capabilities. They plan to both continue to develop SM2 as a robust standalone web monitoring tool and integrate it with their Alterian Integrated Marketing Platform. The Integrated Marketing Platform serves marketing efforts at an enterprise level and has such features as the web content management, email marketing, web analytics, and campaign management. The planned integration of SM2 with this platform is part of a growing trend to bring social media monitoring into market facing enterprise applications.
In the 4.3 SM2 release they focused on upgrades that will make it more enterprise ready, address scalability and improve performance. In this context they addressed administration, workflow, reporting, and the backend technology. To enhance workflow, additional list management tools for search results, automatic assignment of results based on search criteria, distribution of notes to assigned team members, default page and language translation configurations were added. They also enhanced reach and speed for initial and subsequent searches in profile, language and country filter searches, and incremental searches. SM2 supports many languages in content collection and four for sentiment analysis: English, Spanish, German, and Dutch. They have plans to add more in both cases.
Joe said that Alterian stores all of the conversations it collects to the tune of about 10 – 15 million a day. They now have over 3 billion stored conversations, likely many that you and I have had. They keep data storage in-house and are constantly expanding this capability. They now plan to move the SM2 infrastructure into their main Alterian data centers. There are three major ones around the world for better global coverage.
Future upgrades to SM2 include improving regional content collection at the many online communities that are growing outside the US. They provide new releases every two months with some significant new features slotted for 2010.
Having recently read the Forrester report, Text Analytics Takes Business Insight to New Depths, I asked Joe about the difference between SM2 which collects data, helps organize it and provides sentiment analysis and the text analytic tools that have a version of these same capabilities. Joe said that both have a role and Alterian partners with some of the tools mentioned in the Forrester report such as Clarabridge. A tool like SM2 that is focused on social media monitoring has more out-of-the-box reporting, can more easily look at issues like share of voice and key influencers, and respond back to what is discovered. A text analytic tool requires more manual work to address such issues.
I think that Alterian made a great move to acquire SM2 and they are taking good care of its continued development. They have expanded both the development teams and the customer services staff while retaining many of the original people. I look forward catching up again after their new feature set is released.
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