Ok, Zoetrope hasn’t been released yet and from what I’m reading on Data Mining: Text Mining, Visualization and Social Media blog Zoetrope might just well be the glue that binds web data together in a way that makes sense of changes - here’s the video of that Zoetrope can/will do - and there are a lot of “ifs” to be answered - like how much content is going to be indexed unde Zoetrope - but what I see - is an exciting future for Analytsts, like my self, that pose questions - and use the Web Analytics and Zoetrope data to answer the questions and gain insight.
When I used to work at IBM, maybe two years ago, a Stakeholder asked me to measure the impact of changes to certain parts of IBM’s eServer pages - at the time, we had much of the link data in IBM Surfaid - but we didn’t know what was on the the page 6 months earlier - there’s no way to look for something you don’t know was there.
It’s cold and chilly in NYC tonight; much of the day it rained and drizzled and I felt I was on the top of a 39 floor mountain looking down into the rainy fog, below, from my midtown office space.
Today was interesting for a number of reasons including a few good posts on Google Analytics new visualization features and a nice review of motion charts by Dennis in VisualRevenue, where he said that charting more than 3 dimensions requires more complex charting, and that such charting is much more than eye candy.
I also saw that NuConomy, whose CEO I interviewed here, last May, just entered into a public beta today, and NuConomy has some pretty unique visualizations.
And then I did some work, on my own, using Comscore Local Market reporting for a select group of DMA’s and websites, and overlayed unique visitors by DMA with internal data on job postings (by employers) and Resumes posted (by Job Seekers).
I saw some very interesting patterns once I overlayed the data, visualizing data in a way making sense to me.
It is all about traffic, but my visualization showed some DMA’s with less than expected visitors and resumes posted.
It got me thinking on how I may never have noticed the relationships between data points had I not had a hunch about it. I even figured out an “effectiveness metric” base on what percentage of traffic applied for a job during a session.
And it all comes back to visualization, which is why I’m an artist.
For me, it’s all about seeing relationships between data, and I was exhilirated as I had time to think this through.
Actually, there’s one more thing I’m adding (12 hours later) and I thought about it last week - in an organization, even a small one, but certainly in most large ones, there’s a lot of information lying around that only the people who use it regularly know about. That’s a big challenge for a Web Analysts - because we create meaning in our work, largly by overlaying information.
But a lot of times ….. too often ….. we don’t have the right information (and even if we have it - it’s not in the right form or from the right source). Therefore, I think it’s a top priority to create a map of every tool and every bit of information that exists in a company and who owns it (and uses it). It starts with an audit - but it should be a database that you can search on, and it will will tell you the owner and users.
I’ve seen versions of tools at IBM that have some of this - but they were not created for the purposes I am talking about - it was more done for accountability, and only covered certain kinds of ownership - what I’m talking about is a map of all the knowledge in the organization - and who has it and uses it.
I’m going to be attending Virtual Worlds Hollywoodnext week (any readers who are going to be there, as well, contact me and we can meet) to assist Code4Software (speaking at the Technology Track), which is a sponsor for the show.
Virtual World Advertising: Lessons Learned Marketing and advertising inside of virtual worlds can represent a challenge on many levels. Drawing upon over two years of practical in-world advertising experience, Jared Freedman of Code4Software will present hard statistics showing the results of advertising inside of one of the most popular Virtual Worlds, Second Life TM and some important lessons for those seeking to monetize their virtual world venues. Code4Software created the system that currently runs the largest centrally controlled advertising network in Second Life that logs over fifteen million impression minutes per month.
- Jared Freedman, President, Code4Software LLC
And that reminds me, BusinessWeek has a story on Second Life this week - Business, and Startups, in Second Life, which says that virtual worlds are succeeding as a prototyping tool for business projects:
“… The crucial advantage to working in virtual worlds is that they offer much more potential for customers to interact with new products, even ones that don’t exist yet, says Brian Mennecke, associate professor in information management systems at Iowa State University. The cost of entry is low, too. “It’s open to everyone from day one,” says Paul Jackson, principal analyst with technology researcher Forrester Research (FORR). In a report that was co-authored by Jackson and released earlier this year, Jackson points out that, even with collaboration software, sharing 3D or CAD models “has proven tricky, especially when much of the required data lives in proprietary design systems.” Working in virtual worlds helps solve that problem.
Curet is a fan of Second Life because it saved him time and money and made it easier to meet with his engineer in China. But other businesses are using Second Life to offer services not readily available in the real world or to build products they couldn’t otherwise afford to prototype. And some entrepreneurs are using Second Life to test ideas—such as a mass transit system with individual pods for riders—that aren’t feasible to prototype any other way.”
I did a lot of work with Metrics while I was working at IBM and on the Virtual Business Center - and while I don’t spend a lot of time in Virtual Worlds right now - I do see that has an application of Social Media and worth studying.
In fact, the Web Analytics Association is in the process of drafting a standard for Virtual Reality - metrics wise (what we can measure and how we can measaure it) and it will be released, in draft form, later this year.
Since I left IBM, early this year, I haven't been quite as active in Virtual Worlds - my work at Monster Worldwide does not involve Second Life or any other Virtual World at this time.
But I still keep my hand in that community and attend some of their meetings locally, which is the case for a Metaverse Meetup that happened last Wednesday, 7/23/08 here in Manhattan - and this is a video of the entire Meetup (it was about the Open Grid).
"…The topic for this Metaverse Meetup was OpenSim and virtual worlds interoperability and we were very fortunate to be featuring leading pioneers of OpenSim as presenters: David Levine of IBM Research (Zha Ewry in SL) and Adam Frisby of DeepThink Labs (Adam Zaius in SL). Tish Shute (Tara5 Oh in SL), who writes about OpenSim on her blog Ugotrade, was guest moderator and Global Kids generously hosted us in their space."
Lately, my Web Analytics work has not focused so much on Second Life as it did when I was working at IBM, but I still am involved in Virtual World Metrics and follow what is going on in the field, including Code4Software.com.
… Jared Freeman announced over the weekend that his Code4Software had severed all ties with Simuality and their joint project Slippcat "Due to substantial and irreconcilable differences in business philosophy." Simuality and Code4Software joined together in March, using Code4Software's virtual worlds metrics package, V-Tracker, to build a pull-based system to advertising in Second Life. Freeman notes that Code4Software will retain all rights for the Promotional Object Marketing Platform, V-Tracker, AdSoft, and The Advertisers Guild affiliate based Virtual World display advertising network. Slippcat will no longer use V-Tracker services.
I've used V-Tracker quite often when I worked on IBM's Virtual Business Center in Second Life - pulling metrics, creating new metrics, in fact, perhaps the best analytics created in Virtual World, to date, was done via my work with Code4Software.com.
"…IBM said the weaker dollar helped to push revenue up 10 percent."
"…International Business Machines Corp. said revenue grew 10 percent from the year-ago period, with 6 points of that growth related to the weaker dollar."
At the heart of it, Global companies, like IBM, can hedge their bets by investing all over the world (some part of the world can be doing better than others, like our own part of the world, the United States, which is moving towards or in Recession).
"…The broad scope of IBM's global business — led by strong operational performance in Asia, Europe and emerging countries — drove these outstanding results,'' said Samuel J. Palmisano, IBM chairman, president and chief executive.
For fiscal 2007, IBM reported earnings rose 18 percent to $7.18 per share, including a 5-cent gain on the sale of its printing systems division in the second quarter, on sales of $98.8 billion, representing 8 percent growth year-over-year."
I suppose, it can be said Global companies don't have put all their eggs in any one basket, which is why they can prosper in situations like the one we're in now. Notice, however, not one word about operations in this country; and I have to wonder what the loyalty of a company that is so global - do they still layoff people here, because US operations aren't doing as well, or do they use that Global Profit (surplus) to bolster US Operations?
I suppose, the same argument can be made for the United States - the dollar is very weak, yet due to it's inherit weakness, more tourists (record number of tourists in New York - just read about it this morning), more foreigners investing in US Properties, helps to keep the service economy running.
It's hard to say anything is fully good or bad, it all depends on where you sit.
Kinda interesting - today Gary Bourgeault at the Alpha Marketer writes a post on IBM: More Changes in Ad Industry over next five years than in last 50! that features a report from IBM by Saul Berman, Global Media and Entertainment Strategy Leader at IBM Global Business Services, as I was sitting in a room listening to Saul talk about the same report at the Future of Television conference that just ended earlier this evening.
"… (IBM) itself says that they're planning on moving about 30 percent of their ad spend from traditional agencies to online ad exchanges within the next five years."
I also have a copy of the report in my hand, as I'm writing this post.
It's not hard for me to believe that advertising will change radically in the next five years - pretty much everything is moving into ultra-drive, every year moves faster than the last and the more our work is done collabratively, online, the faster it's evolving and knowledge is also growing rapidly.
The nice thing about this is IBM is going to work directly with insiders at Linden Labs further advance 3D Virtual Worlds. IBM has the brainpower and resources to help make this happen and honestly, of all the major corporations, IBM is on of the thought leaders in Virtual Worlds community.
Here's the official announcement:
"…SAN JOSE, Calif. - 10 Oct 2007: IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Linden Lab®, creator of the virtual world Second Life® (www.secondlife.com), today announced the intent to develop new technologies and methodologies based on open standards that will help advance the future of 3D virtual worlds.
IBM and Linden in Push for Open, Integrated 3-D 'Net: Two IBM employees — represented by their 3-D avatars — have a discussion prior to a business meeting at the IBM Open Source and Standards office in the virtual world Second Life. IBM and Linden Labs today announced they will work with a broad community of partners to drive open standards and interoperability to enable avatars — the online persona of visitors to these online worlds — to move from one virtual world to another with ease, much like you can move from one website to another on the Internet today. The companies see many applications of virtual world technology for business and society in commerce, collaboration, education, training and more.
As more enterprises and consumers explore the 3D Internet, the ecosystem of virtual world hosts, application providers, and IT vendors need to offer a variety of standards-based solutions in order to meet end user requirements. To support this, IBM and Linden Lab are committed to exploring the interoperability of virtual world platforms and technologies, and plan to work with industry-wide efforts to further expand the capabilities of virtual worlds.
"As the 3D Internet becomes more integrated with the current Web, we see users demanding more from these environments and desiring virtual worlds that are fit for business," said Colin Parris, vice president, Digital Convergence, IBM. "BM and Linden Lab's working together can help accelerate the use and further development of common standards and tools that will contribute to this new environment."
"We have built the Second Life Grid as part of the evolution of the Internet," said Ginsu Yoon, vice president, Business Affairs, Linden Lab. "Linden and IBM shares a vision that interoperability is key to the continued expansion of the 3D Internet, and that this tighter integration will benefit the entire industry. Our open source development of interoperable formats and protocols will accelerate the growth and adoption of all virtual worlds."
IBM and Linden Lab plan to work together on issues concerning the integration of virtual worlds with the current Web; driving security-rich transactions of virtual goods and services; working with the industry to enable interoperability between various virtual worlds; and building more stability and high quality of service into virtual world platforms. These are expected to be key characteristics facing organizations which want to take advantage of virtual worlds for commerce, collaboration, education and other business applications.
More specifically, IBM and Linden Lab plan to collaborate on:
* "Universal" Avatars: Exploring technology and standards for users of the 3D Internet to seamlessly travel between different virtual worlds. Users could maintain the same “avatar” name, appearance and other important attributes (digital assets, identity certificates, and more) for multiple worlds. The adoption of a universal “avatar” and associated services are a possible first step toward the creation of a truly interoperable 3D Internet.
* Security-rich Transactions: Collaborating on the requirements for standards-based software designed to enable the security-rich exchange of assets in and across virtual worlds. This could allow users to perform purchases or sales with other people in virtual worlds for digital assets including 3D models, music, and media, in an environment with robust security and reliability features.
* Platform stability: Making interfaces easier to use in order to accelerate user adoption, deliver faster response times for real-world interactions and provide for high-volume business use.
* Integration with existing Web and business processes: Allowing current business applications and data repositories – regardless of their source – to function in virtual worlds is anticipated to help enable widespread adoption and rapid dissemination of business capabilities for the 3D Internet.
* Open standards for interoperability with the current Web: Open source development of interoperable formats and protocols. Open standards in this area are expected to allow virtual worlds to connect together so that users can cross from one world to another, just like they can go from one web page to another on the Internet today.
IBM is actively working with a number of companies in the IT and virtual world community on the development of standards-based technologies. This week IBM hosted an industry wide meeting to discuss virtual world interoperability, the role of standards andthe potential of forming an industry wide consortium open to all. This meeting is expected to also begin to address the technical challenges of interoperability and required and recommended standards.
Linden Lab has formed an Architecture Working Group that describes the roadmap for the development of the Second Life Grid. This open collaboration with the community allows users of Second Life to help define the direction of an interoperable, Internet-scale architecture.
For more information about the Second Life Grid visit http://secondlifegrid.net/. The Second Life community maintains information about the Architecture Working Group at http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Architecture_Working_Group. About IBM For more information about IBM, please visit www.ibm.com.
About Second Life Second Life is a 3D online world with a rapidly growing population from 100 countries around the globe, in which the Residents themselves create and build the world, which includes homes, vehicles, nightclubs, stores, landscapes and clothing.
The Second Life Grid is a sophisticated development platform created by Linden Lab, a company founded in 1999 by Philip Rosedale, to create a revolutionary new form of shared 3D experience. The former CTO of RealNetworks, Rosedale pioneered the development of many of today’s streaming media technologies, including RealVideo. In April 2003, noted software pioneer Mitch Kapor, founder of Lotus Development Corporation, was named Chairman. Based in San Francisco, Linden Lab employs a senior team bringing together deep expertise in physics, 3D graphics and networking. Note to editors: Second Life® and Linden Lab® are registered trademarks of Linden Research, Inc.
IBM became the first company to come up with a guideline for 3D Virtual Worlds conduct according to an AP News story titled IBM Guidelines Govern Virtual Employees.
"…IBM is taking the unusual step of establishing official guidelines for its more than 5,000 employees who inhabit "Second Life" and other online universes."
"..IBM executives counter that having a code of conduct is akin to a corporate stamp of approval, encouraging workers to explore more than 100 worlds IBM collectively calls the "3D Internet."
Intel is doing something similar:
"…Intel also is drafting a tip sheet and plans to offer a voluntary course this year for employees who use blogs, social media sites and virtual worlds."
I have been providing the metrics for this project.
"..IBM has been eager to try out 3D marketing, for reasons we’ll get to. Like other companies, it created a virtual Business Center in Second Life (you’ll need to have an account at SL to go there), staffed by live sales avatars during business hours. It had more than 2,000 visitors in the first two weeks it was open and IBM’s island was rated first among corporate islands by at least on study. It has led to at least two sales leads, the company says. Visitors can pull down technical manuals and click to download PDFs straight from Second Life.
However, it chose Second Life only because it the San Francisco company is the most popular virtual site; other companies were trying it out too. "
Sounds right… it has as much to do with the way messaging is set up as the technology … which is still immature:
"…His comments come as Forbes publishes an article suggesting that corporate islands haven’t had many visitors. Erik Hauser of Swivel Media, Wells Fargo’s digital agency, says in the piece: “Going into Second Life now is the equivalent of running a field marketing program in Iraq.” David Churbuck, Web-marketing vice president for computer maker Lenovo, the company that bought IBM’s personal computing division and which doesn’t have a presence at Second Life, adds: “There is nothing to do in Second Life except, pardon my bluntness, try to get laid.”
At this point, I think the real benefits of 3D Virtual Worlds is in collaboration - internal company collaboration - different teams and individuals making contact, finding opportunities that would not have happened if they had not been brought together in a 3D Virtual way.
Like anything else … it's all how you use and leverage the tools.. Second Life is just another tool
"… IBM has twice the content of Google, Dierdorff says, enough pages to fill an average small town library (37,000 80-page books). So far, the 3D experiment has worked in Second Life, but he’s looking for something easier and more open. "
My own observations is that more events on the islands help.. the more you get Avatars to your "island" and get interaction going .. they better your results are going to be in site click through (called "punch through"); there are all kinds of things you can do to increase the effectiveness of an island… a whole book could be written about that, in fact.
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