Enterprise RSS

comScore widget matrix numbers are innacurate

Techcrunch recently published a post about “The Widget Kings” which promoted the comScore widget matrix as a symbol of rank among widget manufacturers. We did a little research on the accuracy of these numbers – to make a long story short; we found the numbers entirely inaccurate and incomplete as ranking of widget vendors.

This is not a new perspective, both GigaOm and Jeff Jarvis posted about this back in June 2007 when the comScore list was first released.

It’s difficult enough to track traffic accurately on the internet, much less widgets, so we weren't surprised to see some inconsistencies; it is to be expected when reports like these are first generated. But when the numbers are deceptive and wrong, the report loses all credibility as an independent ranking of widget vendors.

Let’s compare the list in April from the report just released in November. For our analysis, we looked into the changes in the standings and tried to validate their statistics with Compete and Alexa. While we appreciate that comScore, Compete and Alexa don't all track the same way, we were hoping these sites could at least get a sense of whether these other sites might show traffic increasing or decreasing over that time period.

April 2007 comScore Widget Matrix

November 2007 comScore Widget Matrix

Here are the things that jump out immediately.

1) Brightcove is off the list. They went from 16.9 million unique to less that 14.9 million? Let’s try to corroborate that. Here are charts from Compete.com and Alexa.com

Again, traffic is difficult to measure, but at the very least, both Compete and Alexa point to flat growth, not an 11% loss in audience.

2) Slide.com dropped from 117.1 million uniques to 39 million. Sounds like they are in trouble? Not according to Alexa and Compete.

3) Musicplaylist.us at 15 million uniques in 4/07 and 11/07…

How does this work? Traffic to musicplaylist looks to be in a freefall.

I could go on – none of the numbers seem to make sense. Is comScore playing a shell game for their paying clients? Or is this a true third party representation of widget traffic?

Let us know your thoughts in the comments!

Why the SF Chronicle and Newsweek aren't old media anymore...

Check out SF Gate's myfeeds, and Newsweek's mynewsweek (which you can launch from the bottom of any article).

Play with them for a while, and let us know what you think.

My view is that these are nice first instantiations of where all traditional publishers will move.

(Sidebar; ironically, 'traditional' now means an online content provider whose site has been around for a while.  We're not even talkin' print media much anymore.  As my 12 year-old said when I brought home a print copy of the New York Times the other day, "I didn't even know they *had* an offline version!")

I've had a number of interviews and customer calls lately centering around a question I'll call Brand 2.0.  How do I take my online brand to the next level using (pick among) social media/citizen media/RSS/tagging/memetracking/etc?

(Sidebar 2 -- lots of interest in this from associations and enterprises that want more interactivity with their members and customers, too -- not just media...)

The basic answer is pretty simple, seems to me.  Use your brand strengths to augment these tools around your audience.  Or, as John Hagel puts it, (via Matt McAllister)

In addition to unbundling and rebundling of content, media companies face a choice: do they want to remain product businesses or do they want to become audience relationship businesses?

Hmm, too bizgeekspeak...

For example, SF Gate is using NewsGator's editorial tools to have their editors create feeds comprised of content from all over, including the long tail.  Since I trust the Chronicle's editors and writers, I'm highly likely to vote to subscribe to a feed where they've done the sorting work for me. Plus, there's a very useful editorially-chosen taxonomy of RSS content from all over ... they've done the hard work for me of finding the best stuff on food & wine, local entertainment, etc etc (click on thumbnails for full view):

(Third sidebar; I'll bet anyone who votes to subscribe online is as valuable over time as folks who voted to subscribe in print.  Perhaps less lifetime revenue per online subscriber, but much higher CPM (publisher knows much more about them), and much lower per-sub distribution costs...)

Both the SF Gate and Newsweek readers allow me to start rolling-my-own medium. 

As I've worked extensively with the myfeeds reader on SF Gate, for example, I've developed an entirely different view into the online paper than I had before.  I've discovered content I didn't know existed, and organized the things that matter to me from all over the paper and elsewhere in a way where I now have a place to go that is personal, relevant, and, interestingly, possesses a very unique editorial voice.  Myfeeds' voice is more irreverent and always current, because myfeeds feature, for example, all my favorite columnists' feeds; this way cool culture blog; and some of the rolled feeds (can't beat their editors' choice of weird news, for example) from their editors;

I read more often, and much more SF Gate content than I used to, and don't mind the ads a bit...

Same story at mynewsweek; their editorially-chosen Enterprise feed is a very nice business snapshot whose stories I now read regularly; prior to this I didn't think of them as a primary source for my business news;

Implementations are different; SF Gate has registration, Newsweek does not (so my experience is a bit more valuable to SF Gate than to Newsweek, as the former knows a bit more about me...)

There's much more that will be done, of course (and much more we're doing -- stay tuned for some big announcements very soon).  Some hints; more mash-ups of meta-content from the long tail; more portals into the cool meta-content from more places; more ways to read beyond the site itself...

In the interim, I'm a heck of a lot more valuable reader to SF Gate and Newsweek today than I was a couple of weeks ago...

RSS = Webbing th e web...

Via Rubel:

Infoworld's Matt McAlister: "The day InfoWorld's top news RSS feed received more requests than our home page, I started thinking a frightening thought - RSS is doing to the Web today what the Web has been doing to print for the last several years. We have disintermediated our Web site by offering our news in an easier to access format...again."

New Media vs. Old New Media

Fascinating new vs. main media dialogue happening on Mary Hodder's Napsterization (via Scoble). 

Mary scooped other media by blogging about the AskJeeves/Bloglines deal over the weekend.  Frank Barnako of CBS MarketWatch commented on Mary's scoop as indicative of the threat blogs represent to traditional media.  But Frank's editors added an accusatory headline, Bloggers won't keep a secret ... though she'd never been asked to... (heck, the ASKJ/Bloglines dance had been well known for months...). 

Mary responds, and Frank comments (graciously) on her blog in support, and says that he didn't write the offending headline (-ish)....

...Now, about the headline ... that is not the headline that was on the column when I sent it to copydesk, I don't think. But I can't swear to it.

Bottom line ... blogging is a huge challenge now to companies, pr agencies, and old media. More power to 'em, because it means more info gets out and savvy reaction is immediate.

So, personal media not only scooped main media, but when main media got around to reporting on it, they got it wrong ... and had to use personal media to try and make it right...

Object lesson ....