I want new metrics!

Some time ago I read an article about a study performed by comScore with Tagoda and Starcom which documented that within the U.S market, 6% of the online population account for 50% of the clicks on display ads. Not a surprise that clicks are not balanced across all online users, really, since we all behave and respond differently to advertising in general.

However, problems for those of us who are not dedicated number crunchers do not stop there. I was looking at the weekly traffic statistics for the major Norwegian websites the other day, and noticed that the most visited site (www.vg.no) boasts a whopping three million "unique visitors" in one week. Given that we are a modest 4.8 million inhabitants in this country, and 84% uf us are online (SSB Statistics, Q2 2008), this means that VG.no should have an impressive 75% of us visiting their website if "unique visitor" was corresponding to an actual person. It may be because I'm not a keen reader of VG.no, but that does sound a bit inflated.

With a recession looming ahead of us it's fairly obvoius that marketers are going to be giving us a clear message about kindly giving them the utterly best return on their investments. For those of us who work with interactive media, we need to get some new tools to be able to compare not only how different online media perform (how much is a 'click' on a banner worth compared to a 'unique visitor' on a website? What is 12 pageviews compared to 12 minutes in an engaging Flash game?), but also how they compare to offline media.

Microsofts analytics department, The Atlas Institute, takes a plunge into the deep end and makes an attempt with "Engagement Mapping", which may indeed be taking us a few steps further.

Now that Joost is back in the game with their new in-browser player to compete with Hulu, I'm very interested to see if traditional TV metrics will be moving towards a new standard as well as internet metrics finding new ways to prove efficiency and effect. Not to mention Google TV Ads and the new overlay ads that are popping up on nearly every web TV player I've seen the last few months - what will they add to this conundrum?

Exciting times are ahead in this sea of numbers, but give me something more than clicks and unique visitors - I want effectiveness!

Gesture and touch based interfaces - a new era coming?

Just read an article on TechCrunch about a new Microsoft reserach project called Touchwall. Basically it's a hardware/software system that uses gestures for navigation. While not being an entirely new line of thinking (MIT and others have done extensive research into this for decades), it represents what I believe is a trend that may result in gesture and touch based human interfaces as the primary navigation device for screen based media.

For those of us who work in the field of developing interactive media experiences, it poses a challenge and an opportunity: While we are used to making interface design for clicks and keyboard input, touch and gestures call for different thinking. Apple's coverflow and expose systems are can be easily adapted while Reactable and Microsoft Surface are good examples but slightly further from native OS implementation. And hey, let's not forget the Nintendo Wii, which has undoubtedly proven it's genius.

The clue about the Wii is that since it's primary use is not writing, there is no need for the old clonky human interface devices that are usually assigned to digital devices: The keyboard and mouse. As far as I'm concerned, mobile web browsers that adapt normal web content and even implement a mouse pointer are really going the wrong way - let's make content with navigation that fits the device!

As for new opportunities, consider using a Touchwall display at bus shelters and boards where the users can get close enough to interact. Where you are currently just presented with a printed time table for buses, the bus company could instead give you the whole world at your fingertips. Outdoor display advertising is facing a digital revolution as soon as display production cost crosses the line of being cheaper than print and manual labour to replace boards.

Anyone else than me who finds this very exciting?