Chinalytics Longmarch Blog

Yesterday I had the pleasure to host the July WAW here in Beijing with John Wang, Product Manager at Sinotech Group sharing Sinotech’s perspective on Web Analytics and Social Media Analytics. Thanks John for sharing.

While John had only a couple of slides, it was slide 8 (the SinoBuzz dashboard) that caught most attention and started a discussion that lasted almost half an hour. Thanks John for being a great sport answering all the questions in detail (especially the more pesky ones from Paul Denlinger )

Some take aways from the presentation and the discussion:

• The Social Media tracking field is getting crowded, with pioneer CIC, BBS aggregator Daqi, Ogilvy One’s OBuzz and now Sinotech’s SinoBuzz. That’s great news for advertisers and ad agencies. It keeps everyone on their toes
• Sinotech has been working of Sinobuzz for more than one year. Especially the natural language processor part had been tricky, but they are confident that it produces reliable results now.
  FP: Chinese is a very difficult language to interpret with software. None of the natural language processing tools I have seen for Chinese have worked at an acceptable level. I would love to see a more detailed demonstration of Sinotech’s system on a post and aggregated level to understand if they have cracked this particular nut.
• SinoBuzz is working with connectors to plug into BBS, Blog, Social Network, Video sharing and other conversations. The platform is flexible to add other connectors to any upcoming platform or network.
  FP: This flexibility is a clear competitive advantage, given the more static nature of most competitive products.
• SinoBuzz is trying to aggregate unique metrics from various platform
  • #of BBS post, BBS clicks, BBS replies, Post Sentiment
  • #of Blog post, Blog replies, estimates about Blog post PV’s, Blog post sentiment
  • SNS #of Friends, #of status message, #of posts, # of relies, post sentiment
  • etc

  into general metrics like “reputation” and “attitude”.
  FP: I am highly sceptical of this approach since is a) lack transparency b) ignores unique characteristics of different platforms, their audiences and their impact c) uses unreliable third party resources like Alexa to gauge the impact of sources that do not publish reach (PV) data.

• The Sinobuzz dashboard is well designed and provides a good overview of brand performance. Like most dashboards (see Avinash’s Action Dashboard post), it suffers from the lack of analysis and actionable insights.
  FP: A good rule of thumb for any Dashboard: Handle with care. Dashboards without analytics and recommendations usually end up as pretty charts without impact. The key resource is not the dashboard, but an analyst who understands these numbers and your business and can provide actionable insights and recommendations based on that data. John mentioned that there are more reports to dig deeper and it would be great to understand what these reports can do. The critical queastion remains: How does the tool enable brands to take action?

What are your thoughts? Did I miss anything important? Let me know in the comments section.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Defining Social with Usage Data (arnoldit.com)
• Semantic Search Getting Social (marketingpilgrim.com)
• Accidental Measurement And Why We Love Useless Metrics (rohitbhargava.typepad.com)

While many of my readers probably already know the Yahoo! Web Analytics Forum: For those who don’t, I highly recommend you become a member and subscribe to the updates. There is no better way to keep yourself updated about the hot topics in the Web Analytics arena (while sometime the email updates stack up quite a bit in my Inbox….)

Currently a hot discussion is ranging on the benefits and implementation of the Web Analytics Association’s Web Analytics Standards (PDF).

1. Brandt Dainow started the discussion off on iMedia Connection claiming: “What the WAA has done is a retrograde step — the WAA standard has less precision and utility than the JICWEBS standards, so it moves us backward not forward. However, WAA is a major force in the world of web analytics and online marketing. What it says matters. In this light, the work of the WAA standards committee is a disaster for the web analytics community. It will take years to undo the damage and create proper precise standards that can be implemented in software. The WAA “standard” is not a standard, it’s just second-rate muttering.”
2. Stephane Hamel replied on his blog, highlighting the differences between an industry standard and a “standard terminology”, arguing that the Web Analytic’s Association’s value is coming from creating a consensus among the different actors in the market.
   The ISO is a standard body, and in order to claim ISO certification you need to abide by strict rules, and pay undergo audits to retain certification. On the other end, the IAB is a more open structure, much more similar to the WAA, that was able to define common terminology regarding online advertising and bring “standards, guidelines and best practices”. On the other end, the IAB is a more open structure, much more similar to the WAA, that was able to define common terminology regarding online advertising and bring “standards, guidelines and best practices.” Which one makes most sense? Which one makes most sense? In my mind, the second option is the way to go! In my mind, the second option is the way to go!
3. Many other post in the thread, but I like the reply from Angie Brown, co-chair of the commitee (extra points for staying calm, too).
   There are several reasons the definitions are written the way they are, and why we left some wiggle room in them (too much, in some people’s opinion and that’s fair enough). First, there’s the intended audience. Stephane hit the nail on the head when he said we used marketing rather than engineering terms. Web analytics is a business function, and we tried to write the definitions (yes, definitions, not technical standards — for now) in such a way that they would be accessible to most marketers.

Check the whole this out. Which argument do you agree with? Let me know in the comments