Back in November, I mentioned that I was working on the idea of new ways to benchmark the success of online businesses in today’s more mature operational environment. I am still working on the base ideas, but a colleague of mine has helped me coalesce some ideas, and they are now forming the foundation of the concepts my company will begin using internally to more deeply understand the various Web performance benchmarks we monitor.

For those who use the existing Web performance benchmarks to determine the success and failure of your online business, you understand how thin the veneer is on these benchmarks. They do not provide true insight into the operational success of an online business, and they are more likely to sow the seeds of distrust between IT and Business operations in the long-term by creating an artificial standard which becomes the goal.

If an online business truly wants to achieve and maintain exemplary Web performance numbers, it has to start with a strong foundation, and build on it. Why? The team I work with spends a lot of time trying to understand and reverse engineer the broken processes, designs, and architectures that were laid out in order to get big fast. After 3-4 years of technical starvation and underfunding, these online businesses are beginning to show strain; the temporary fix has become the permanently broken process.

The rush into the Web analytics space in the last few weeks is a key sign that companies now see value in and want to exploit the vast quantities of data that they collect on their traffic daily. Web analytics is an astoundingly complex field, but most people boil it up to a single concept: How many Unique Page Views did I get?

Unique Page Views is an outdated Web server analytics metric. It does not tell me anything about the business, other than it has a lot of traffic. Back in the “eyeballs are everything” period, this would have been a big deal. Now, I say so what, and start asking:

• From where
• Dialup? Broadband?
• How many were able to successfully complete their transactions?
• What paths are most visited
• Average spend by connection type?
• Average spend by hour?
• etc.

Like Unique Page Views, the average Web performance and availability of a Web page or transaction does not accurately represent the overall health of any online business. Within the large populations of data that exist at the Web measurement firms, there is a wealth of data that could be used to clearly expose more important benchmarking statistics.

If you are from an online business, you already understand that the average performance over an artificially-defined period of time is a very inaccurate way to measure the success of the online business. However, it is the accepted standard in the field. Underlying those aggregated values, there are clearly-defined statistical methods which can be used to extract even more meaningful information from the mass of measurement data.

I would discuss more of the ideas and concepts that we are working on, but I know that I do get visitors from our competitors, so I will have to keep our ideas under wraps for right now.

But I want to hear yours. What does your online business use as a benchmark for success? Standard avergae performance and availability? Or something more complex that examines the performance data as a complete population, as opposed to an aggregated summary value? Does your firm tie business goals and objectives into the performance benchmarks so that people across the company can understand how the business is succeeding, and how delivering a good, bad, and downright awful online performance experience can affect the bottom line?

This is an exciting time to have access to large amounts of data on the health of the Internet.

Tags: analytics, benchmarking, benchmarks, broadband, business, cro, data, design, EAD, HTTP, IE, IM, information, Internet, it, live, maintain, measurement, Om, One, online, page views, performance, PHP, pr, server, statistics, traffic, views, visitors, web, Web analytics, Web Performance, Web server

Jeremy Zawodny weighs in with some comments on the growing differences in the Wordpress and MT user groups. [here]

I agree with his comments, as I use b2evolution, which is effectively a branch in the Wordpress family. It is all native PHP with a simple MySQL backend that I can run on a relatively underpowered server in my basement, and still look like I know what I am doing.

Heck, the app even survived a Scobelization last week.

Why b2evo over MT? I took a look a MT when I was shopping around for blog software to do self-hosting with when I wanted to move off TypePad, and when I read the MT user manual, I walked away. Sure, it may be richly featured and extremely powerful, but this is a hobby, not my life.

b2evo was so simple I neary cried. I unpacked the tarball, made some minor changes and I was blogging.

So, I thing that JZ is right on when he differentiates the two user populations. They will both be wildly successful, but WP will be for self-startes and maintainers, while MT will rely on highly-skilled IT teams for implementation and maintenance.

There is no good or bad; just different.

Tags: app, blog, Blogging, EAD, evolution, HTML, HTTP, IE, IM, it, maintain, maintenance, mysql, Om, PHP, pr, run, server, wordpress

For those of you who use GrabPERF, please note that I have reduced the measurement cycle to once every 15 minutes.

Currently, I am not using this system for much, and I am looking for a graceful way to retire it, or pass along the code, as I can no longer reliably host or maintain the system because:

1. I am running low on disk space that I could be using for a home file server
2. The machines can no longer effectively and efficiently maintain and process the volume of data that I have stored from my measurements
3. I have lost interest in further development

I am actively entertaining interested parties who would like to take this on and evolve it.

Tags: current, data, GrabPERF, HTTP, IE, it, Mac, maintain, measurement, Om, performance, pr, run, server, web, WebPerformance.Org

Looks like Firefox could become the genesis of the private-label browser, unencumbered by nasty platform/OS/Service Pack limitations. [here -- courtesy of the XSLT:General blog]

I believe strenously that Microsoft has committed a serious error in limiting the upcoming MSIE 7 update to Windows XP SP2 machines. It will not drive the large corporate IT departments who still use Windows 2000 to upgrade. It will increase resentment towards the company, which will be actively commented on in places (such as here).

I use Windows XP SP2. But as you see from the sub-title of this blog, the next computer I will buy for myself is going to be a Macintosh Powerbook. And I will run Safari, Firefox, Camino, and (very, very occasionally) fire up some 6 year-old, badly maintained version of MSIE for MacOSX.

When I use Windows, I will use MSIE to compare the look and feel of the pages I build. And nothing more.

If Microsoft wanted this new browser to be a true update, and not simply an addition to their program of forced obsolescence, they would have made it free of OS restrictions. What Microsoft has said is that if you don’t run Windows XP SP2, your browsing experience will be sub-optimal, less secure, and unsupported.

Web designers, this means that you will have to have yet another platform to test your Web designs, as MSIE 5.5, 6.0, and 7.0 will all interpret CSS, CSS2 and other design features differently.

So, what is the big deal about MSEI 7.0? It shows the Web community that Microsoft has still not learned the lesson that Firefox is teaching: be everywhere. Microsoft, the OS is not the platform of the future; the browser is the platform of the future. And a browser that can run anywhere, anytime, in any language, on any hardware, will win.

Tags: blog, book, browser, browser war, community, corporate, cro, css, design, Firefox, HTML, HTTP, IE, IM, it, LAN, Mac, maintain, Microsoft, MSIE, Om, Pages, pr, run, Safari, update, web, Web community, Web design, Web designers, window, Windows

That is not a typo. The great man spoke the words today. [here and MSFT Press Release and here and here and here and here
and here and here]

Will it be better…?

The quote:

Building on those advancements, Gates announced Internet Explorer 7.0, designed to add new levels of security to Windows XP SP2 while maintaining the level of extensibility and compatibility that customers have come to expect. Internet Explorer 7.0 will also provide even stronger defenses against phishing, malicious software and spyware. The beta release is scheduled to be available this summer.

But what will those features be?

• Complete CSS2 support? Hell! CSS1?
• Full HTTP/1.1 compatability?
• Final removal of ActiveX?
• Truly enforce [X]HTML standards for publishing?
• Simple extensibility for any developer?
• Themes/Chrome?
• A matching version for MacOSX?

They know they are in trouble. They are generating buzz. But if they have just patched and incremented MSIE 6.0, without re-engineering the core parser, rendering and networking engines, then it won’t be worth talking about.

Come on Microsoft: Impress me.

Tags: ASP, blog, Chrome, cro, css, customers, design, Firefox, hits, HTML, HTTP, IE, IM, Internet, Internet Explorer, internet explorer 7, it, Mac, maintain, Microsoft, MSIE, networking, Om, PHP, pr, web, window, Windows

Scott Jones of SalesBuilders has an excellent and very succinct critique of CRM “solutions”. [here]

Scott nails it: a CRM is just another application. It’s usefuleness is completely reliant on people knowing how to use it, and actually using it to help isolate and identify the links and opportunities which will allow them to grow their business within existing customers and obtain new business from prospect.

At my former company, a large CRM solution was implemented. Took over a year, involved at least one full-time consultant and 3 staff members. And when it was complete, nothing. It was slow, clunky and difficult to maintain. People avoided it. And it showed.

Are there any honest stories out there — not originating from CRM vendors — of how a CRM solution allowed companies to more quickly identify and isolate new opportunities that would have been overlooked without such a solution? How did it help you gain new business and grow revenues from existing customers?

Are they out there?

Paul Lavallee adds more to the conversation here.

Tags: app, application, blog, business, consultant, conversation, customers, evolution, HTML, HTTP, IE, IM, it, maintain, marketing, Om, One, pr

For those that use the GrabPERF system, or the performance libraries on the site, I have posted a PayPal Donation button.

Costs for developing, documenting, and maintaining the site is starting to mount, and the wear and tear on my very ancient systems is starting to show. In order to bring the GrabPERF system up to snuff, I will need new database and Web server machines in the very new future, a cost that I have no hope of covering.

Plans to expand the system beyond the single measurement location cannot go ahead without a more stable, secure and appropriate hosting environment.

If you use the GrabPERF System and want to see it improved, please donate.

Tags: app, data, database, EAD, GrabPERF, IE, IM, it, LAN, Mac, maintain, measurement, performance, pr, server, web, Web server