Web analytics, web metrics, and how to use them to track and improve conversions

Online Marketing Blog has an interview with Lawrence Coburn on Marketing with Widgets and Widget Analytics - it's interesting to read for a two reasons:

A. Widget Analytics     B. Examples of Successful Widgets.

"Widget analytics is still in its infancy. Currently, you can get a rough idea of how many times your widget has gotten picked up by doing backlink searches on Google, Yahoo, or Technorati using the “site:” qualifier to isolate the big widget aggregators like MySpace. Inbound traffic from widgets can be measured by checking your log files. However, as of now, there are no off the shelf solutions to help widget publishers understand exactly how folks are engaging with their widgets. There’s a company called Clearspring that is working on this problem, and I look forward to seeing how they progress."

I did some research on on Clearspring and this is what I came up with

"Clearspring, currently in preview, is working on widget technologies for widget developers. The company asked not to share any visuals of their offering until they launch in January, but was open about their plans. They have explained their strategy in terms of three major components:

• Write once embed everywhere
• Widget service container
• Widget usage analytics

Clearspring can track how many times a widget was invoked.

"Because the company wraps widgets into a container, they are also able to track the usage of widgets. This is an interesting and very useful service as it will allow developers to track which sites are most effective. The analytics data will be viewable on ClearSpring.com and will be similar to the traffic charts offered by most web hosting companies, only it will show the actual user clicks on the widget. "

Clearspring, for a publisher, allows creation and updating of any widget created with this platform.

And for a Developer

I wrote about Widgets recently for Brand Marketing, and threw in some ideas on what kind of Widgets some of my clients could develop, given what they offer in content and services.

In the interview with Lawrence Coburn, Lawrence gives 3 examples of "successful" Widgets -  IE:

"... A widget that I think is great is the iLike widget. iLike is a social music discovery site that features an iTunes plug in that captures all of your iTunes listening behavior. iLike spits out a widget that displays your most recently listened to tracks, as well as your top bands overall. The widget is also a music player that allows readers to play samples of the songs from your own iTunes history. This widget is updated in real time, and is a great example of a widget that is powered by implicit, personalized data.

Bitty Browser is another widget that I like, that I think provides a glimpse of the next generation of widgets. Bitty Browser is an embeddable web browser, that allows publishers to embed mini versions of their favorite sites within the expience of another site. Unlike most widgets which offer snapshots of content, Bitty Browser enables a fully functional experience within the body of the widget.

A third widget that I’m a big fan of is the community widget provided by MyBlogLog. The MyBlogLog widget attempts to provide social networking functionality like user profiles and user to user messaging across various blog properties. Blog publishers embed the MyBlogLog code in their sidebars, and MyBlogLog displays thumbnail photos of the blog’s readers within the widget. Clicking on a thumbnail launches the reader’s MyBlogLog profile page, and allows basic social network functionality like testimonials and messaging. Readers are also assigned to blog communities based on their reading habits, and introductions are facilitated to similar readers."