The following was originally posted in a different forum, and after some discussion, Phil and I thought that over time this thread might become relevant to Digital ID World as well. We shall see ;-)
===
I've been thinking a lot lately about the whole "measurement of new media." My thinking is by no means clear on this, but I wanted to start writing some of it down.
Traditional media measurement is all about mass. Amass a large amount of viewers, and then assume that some of the mass will convert into sales. Its the classic "funnel approach." That funnel is the *entire* business model of traditional media and advertising -- and you'll notice, its linear. Insert variable on one end of equation, exert force, expect result on other end of equation -- LIN-E-AR.
Google altered that just slightly with adwords by adding a *bit* of self-selection. No longer is the *mass* sitting passively and being fed content. Now they actively search on a term and are served up relevant ads, whereby a click through shows some amount of self-selected interest.
Its a good innovation -- and it took an incredibly inefficient model (tradtional advertising) and made it more efficient. But it is by no means an *efficient* mechanism. Google is straddling the divide between "new media" and old media, but it is not crossing the chasm. The reason: while Google added new variables to the equation, it still is operating on a linear model.
"New media," or whatever you want to call it (search, blogging, podcasting, social networking, etc), is not linear. Its core quality is that it is a networked model -- much like a rainforest, or marketplace, or economy. A network cannot be accurately measured via linear equations. It requires networked understandings and networked measurements.
The big problem that "new media" needs to solve is how to measure the *quality of engagement* of an audience, and how that engagement serves to scale to other interested parties in a networked environment. THAT is the metric that creates the next powerhouse "media company." Someone needs to crack the dynamics of networked engagement....which, by the way, is a big part of what I think Brad Feld is circling around when he thinks/talks about the "dynamics of information."
Solving it means thinking about how ecosystems and networks deal with the dynamics of engagement. Time to pull out those old science of complex adaptive systems books. Time for some heavy winter reading.
Has anyone solved this yet? Not even close. Until they do, we'll just be stuck feeding mass into the funnel so that sales magically pop out the other end of the sausage machine.
Posted by ejnorlin at October 28, 2006 03:02 PM