Traffic comparison: Alexa vs Google Trends vs Compete vs ComScore

I cringe every time someone pulls traffic/audience numbers from Alexa for competition/market research. Alexa is simply bullshit when it comes to Indian websites. But, what about other such tools? Have you ever wondered where & how these website traffic-research tools get their data?

Alexa

Here's what Alexa discloses (emphasis mine):

Alexa computes traffic rankings by analyzing the Web usage of millions of Alexa Toolbar users and data obtained from other, diverse traffic data sources.
[...]
The traffic data are based on the set of toolbars that use Alexa data, which may not be a representative sample of the global Internet population.

That's right. They get their data from people who download and install Alexa toolbars. They mention "other, diverse traffic data sources" about 8 times on that page, but fail to mention, even once, what those "other, diverse" sources could be.

Compete

Here's how Compete does it (emphasis mine):

Compete’s clickstream data are collected from a 2,000,000 member panel of US Internet users (about a 1% sample), using diverse sources.
[...]
Compete’s panel measures US, but not international users. Compete has worked diligently to develop what it believes is the largest and most diverse panel of online consumers in the United States.

Compete also fails to mention their "diverse sources", but at least they mention the sample size (2 million) and sample geography (US internet users) very clearly. Their claim of "about a 1% sample" is also correct: total internet users in North America are about 272 million (source).

ComScore

And here's ComScore's methodology:

Central to most comScore services is the comScore panel, the largest continuously measured consumer panel of its kind. With approximately 2 million worldwide consumers under continuous measurement
[...]
comScore recruits panelists through a variety of online methods designed to ensure a demographically-balanced and representative sample.

ComScore's methodology page is the biggest mish-mash of marketing gobbledygook I've ever seen. And a sample-size of 2 million worldwide is the biggest joke! That would make it a 0.1% sample size based on the world internet user population of approx 2 billion (source). Probably a 0.1% sample size is statistically significant on a global scale, but how does that distribution change for India? Is their sample size in India also statistically significant? They fail to mention that.

And I'm not sure what these "variety of online methods" to recruit panelists are. I have been spending at least 5-6 hours each-day on the Internet since the last 7 years, but have NEVER been solicited by ComScore to become a panelist. Neither has anyone I know.

Google Trends for Websites

Compare this to how Google Trends for Websites generates its data (emphasis mine):

Trends for Websites combines information from a variety of sources, such as aggregated Google search data, aggregated opt-in anonymous Google Analytics data, opt-in consumer panel data, and other third-party market research.

Google Search and Google Analytics are the core data-sources that power Google Trends for Websites. For the uninitiated, most websites in India would be getting 30% or more of their traffic from Google (paid + organic). Google Analytics is the most widely used analytics system on the Indian internet scene.

Conclusion

Now think - how many users have you seen (in India) with an Alexa toolbar installed? Is anyone you know on the ComScore panel? Compare that to how many people you've seen using Google Search? People entering domain names in Google (eg. enter 'flipkart.com' as search query on Google)? Websites that use Google Analytics for measuring+analyzing their visitor data?

I'd bet my money on Google Trends for Websites any day for researching the Indian internet scene. What about you?

Advertising as a business model?

If it was not already well-known that Internet advertising as a way to make money is extremely hard, today's Facebook IPO filing gives us more data to support it. In 2011, 85% of Facebook's total revenue (USD 3.711 billion) came through advertising, which is approximately USD 3.15 billion. That's HUGE! However, what is equally huge is their MAU (monthly active users) number at 845 million in Dec-2011. If we take some approximations and do the math, it means Facebook managed to make barely 36 cents per active-user, per-month.

Yes. Barely 36 cents per-active user, per-month. [1]

According to Alexa, Facebook gets an average of 13 pageviews per-user per-day. According to this report each user visits Facebook an average of 40 times per-month. This would mean:

• a minimum of approx 440 billion pageviews (!) in Dec-2011 [2]
• a maximum CPM of 60 cents per thousand page views [3]

Yes. Barely 60 cents CPM. On a per-impression basis this number could be 3x lower because Facebook has about 3 ads per page.

And that's the #2 website in the world. No wonder traditional publishing companies are dying everyday - not everyone can have close to a billion active users to allow a few cents per-user to cover their costs. Internet advertising is such a horrible monetization model. We have to think of something better!

[1] And that's the number per active-user. If we compute this for total users, the number will be much lower.
[2] 845 monthly-active-users  x 13 pageview per-user per-day x 40 visits. Not the best calculation, but good enough to give us a minimum value
[3] USD 3.15 billion divided by 12, to get the average monthly revenue, divided by 440 billion pageviews x 1,000. Again, I know, not the best, but good enough to give us a ballpark.

Meru Cabs Mobile Booking Website - Review

Meru Cabs and DotAhead, Goa have done it yet again - wowed me with another offering from their stables. This time it's a pretty kickass mobile optimised version of their awesomely kickass online booking website. They've done it the right way and haven't jumped onto the Android/Blackberry/iOS app bandwagon. Seriously, not every brand needs to have an app.

The mobile site is optimised only for basic WAP phones. There is no special treatment for smartphones or touch phones, which can use the same basic phone interface. I think it's a good strategy to test the waters and see where the usage is coming from, before investing more into product development.

Visit www.merucabs.com from your mobile browser or to automatically get served the mobile version of the site. The auto-detection worked for native Nokia browser as well as Opera Mini. (You can also visit www.merucabs.com/m from your desktop browser to view the mobile version). Here's what the first page looks like:

Google +1 vs Google Reader "Like" - Competing features?

• Google Reader had the "like" feature since July, 2009. Why didn't they release a widget for blogs to showcase the like count on each post? This widget would've also given  a way to users not on Google Reader to showcase their appreciation for a blog post.
• When Google finally released +1 they didn't integrate it with the Google Reader like count. So, now there are multiple ways for users on the Google ecosystem to like/recommend a piece of content. Why?

Am I missing something obvious here? What do you think?

 

Brand bidding as a PR tool: Learnings from CCAvenue hack

Following up on my previous post about the CCAvenue hacking incident & learnings from it, I'm really, really surprised that CCAvenue has not started bidding on it's own brand terms.

There's a lot that has already been said about bidding on one's own brand terms in the regular course of things and I'm not about to go into it here. You can read some opinions about it here & here. This post focuses on why you should be bidding on your brand terms during critical public situations.

As of 11 May, 2011, a Google search on "ccavenue hacked" results in a bunch of links from other blogs & news sites, which talk about their take on the incident.

If CCAvenue were bidding on terms like "ccavenue hacked", etc. they would easily have the opportunity to place the official response right on top of the search results page. With a few rupees per-click they could ensure that users hear of the official response first. The fact that their official response sucks, is a different matter altogether.


BP seems to have done this during the Deepwater Horizon Oilspill incident. They were bidding aggressively on keywords like "oil spill", "deepwater", "gulf of mexico", etc. The ads took users to a section on their website detailing the official response and updates on the damage control process. Read more about the BP Oil Spill Google ads here. However, they seem to have gotten a fair bit of backlash -  [1] [2] - for spending time in online reputation management instead of fixing the damn problem. But that's mostly because oil companies don't have a good reputation to begin with. I would presume that that's not the case with CCAvenue.

PS: I'm not sure what the search volume for the CCAvenue-hack related keywords would be. I'm itching to put out an ad and see how many clicks I can get on this. Screw it, let's do it!

Two must-have features in Google Blogger & Reader

Two features that I wish Google Blogger & Reader had:

1. Google Reader should show me ONE consolidated news item if it appears multiple times in my news feed. For example if a particular post has been shared by one or more of my friends and/or is also part of my news feed it should show up just once. Bonus feature would be to display each user's note/comment in a usable fashion.
2. Google Blogger should have the ability to reply to a comment via email. While you can be notified via email with every comment to a particular post, you can't simply hit the reply button and continue the discussion. Pull up your socks Google, it has been ages since Facebook released this feature for all comment threads on its platform.

What do you think?

Aside, if you haven't already read why I think Google Blogger + Reader can beat the shit out of Twitter, do it now. I mean now!

CCAvenue hack: What can developers & businesses learn?

If you haven't already read about the alleged hacking of CCAvenue, here's the gist:

1. Hacker, calling himself d3hydr8, posts complete schema of CCAvenue's DB on a mailing list. The post also contains the contents of 'admn_users' table, which include username & passwords in plain text.
2. Story is covered all over the interwebs - MediaNama coverage, Pluggd coverage
3. CEO, Vishwas Patel "patently" denies that this happened.

Developers should read this

Here's what developers can learn about how to safely store passwords:

How to announce an acquisition to customers?

Learn from Wufoo.

It's very rare that an email notifying you about a merger/acquisition makes you smile. Makes you care. Does a good job of explaining what's going on. And does all of this in plain English, not corporate-speak.

That's quite a lot for an email to achieve. But that's exactly what this email from Wufoo did.

Meru Cabs Online Booking Website - A Review

I'm a big fan of Meru Cabs. Always on time [1], well maintained fleets of cars, and appropriately priced.

My only grouse had been with waiting (for eternity) to speak with someone in their call center to make a booking. Well, with the recent launch of online bookings on the Meru Cabs website, even that seems to have been solved.

A big shoutout to my friends at DotAhead, Goa for solving this beautifully.

What's good

The home page is where all the action happens - as it ideally should, for a website focusing on transactions. No mugshots of founders & investors welcoming you to the "Meru family". No corporate-speak about our "fleet of cars", "since 2002", yada yada. Get your booking. And get out. Simple. Here's what the home page looks like:

8 types of bad creative critics

I hope I'm none of them. Or better yet - have evolved through each of them already :-)

[Via Indigo Consulting, which is originally via SkydeCartoons.com as indicated on the image]

How can Google beat Twitter at the social game?

Quick answer - Embrace blogs & RSS feeds.
Long answer follows...

Twitter is a micro-blog

The numero uno use-case on Twitter is that users publish content (opinions, links, etc.) and broadcast it to whoever wants to listen. (The content, for some unknown reason, is limited to 140 chars.)

There is a well established & easy way to publish content online – hosted blogging platforms. There is a well documented & well supported open standard for broadcasting one's content – RSS feeds. No wonder Twitter was called a micro-blogging platform when it started out.

Google's ITA acquisition: Impact on Indian OTAs?

Google has just announced on it's blog that it's ITA acquisition had been cleared by the US Department of Justice. Given that Google drives significant amount of traffic to the OTAs, this is big news for the market.

Even though it could take a while for Google to integrate & roll-out a travel search product in India, this is significant for the Indian players here as well - Cleartrip, MakeMyTrip, and Yatra.

How could this possibly affect the Indian OTAs?

Does copy with character work in India?

There's something to be said about products which have a certain character to them. The first example that comes to mind is MailChimp though they seem to have distanced their monkey quite a bit these days. Another set of opinionated products are from the  37Signals stable, but they don't try to dress them up in a character, in my opinion.

I was surprised to find FeedBurner, now a Google product still holding on to their quirkiness. I love how their their main navigation reads: Analyze, Optimize, Publicize, Monetize, Troubleshootize

The "Troubleshootize" page carries forward the character and gives a fun spin to the standard FAQs.

And the dashboard tries to pull a page out of Flickr's book with random welcome messages.

It's a bit sad that their integration with Blogger is not smooth & completely frictionless, but that's a different story altogether.

Something that I've always wondered is whether such quirky copy (or "copy with character", as I like to call it) works with the general Indian internet audience? Or should one play it safe and produce plain-vanilla "transactional copy." What do you think? Any Indian products with such character that you know about?

Will Firebug Be Issued a DMCA Takedown Notice?

So, will NYT start issuing DMCA take-down notices to the umpteen tools that enable you to "circumvent" the NY Times paywall? What about tools like Firebug & Chrome Developer Tools? Even they can enable someone to "circumvent" by hiding the layover DIV.

Work of a seasoned consultant!

And with such a brain-dead paywall implementation (it's just a standard HTML/DIV layover), would one really call it an effective control measure as expected by the DMCA Act:

No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.
[...]
No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that--
`(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;

Apparently, NYT has spent $40-50 million on implementing this paywall. That's right, Rs 180-225 crore! Seriously WTF!

Flipkart Lite - A Review of Flipkart's Mobile Product

I just love what Flipkart has done in the online retail space. The breadth of their catalogue is great. Their pricing is transparent. Their shipping is free. And their delivery times are phenomenal. I don't remember buying a book from anywhere other than Flipkart in the past year.

They have a mobile optimised site too - one of the very few in the Indian market. Flipkart Lite allows you to search & order all product lines available on the desktop site, i.e. books, mobiles, movies, music, games, cameras, & computers. However, the only payment option available is cash-on-delivery (COD). Given that they're in a business that doesn't need immediate fulfillment, like flight tickets, it's makes sense to avoid the payment challenge on mobile.

The transaction process is fairly straightforward, barring a minor glitch here or there. The experience seems to be optimised for small-screen devices as is clear from how they're treating the search box & search results.

The Importance Of Good Copy

Very often I come across websites where copy is written as an afterthought. I cringed when I read this:


Can you guess which type of product this is for?

And the answer is...

DVD Rental Plans! Who would've thunk?!

Composing blog posts in Textile Markup

Why can't I compose posts in Textile Markup? It's so damn simple and guarantees conversion to clean HTML. I hate using the rich text editor for composing posts. It's too complicated and I don't like the superfluous markup it generates. Plus I've also gotten addicted to Textile, thanks to the amount of time I spend on Basecamp.

I've submitted a feature request and also posted about it on the Blogger Help Group.

Trains search by Cleartrip

We've just launched a new product – Cleartrip Trains Search It's simple. It's fast. It's comprehensive. And it rocks! Give it a spin and let us know at Cleartrip Forums

A lot of hard work put in by Piyush, Anurag, of course our rocking UI team (Hrush, Varun, Rakesh, et al).

Times Of India - Male fertility and email

Following up on my interesting tidbits around the Internet thread, here's another TODO off my list :-)

The Times of India has an Ajaxified (ooh!) widget on the right side of its homepage. Clicking on the "Most emailed" tab comes up with very amusing results. Check out what I found:



I wonder how many men would be using it to sway it in their favour. "But darling, it is a scientific fact that if we don't do it now, we won't have that baby 3 years later!"

And no, you won't find that link there -- it's gone :-) Here it is, by the way.

Facebook - Interesting Screenshots

Every now and then I keep coming across interesting tidbits on the Internet (or Mumbai's streets) which I keep tagging as "must-blog" and stashing away in my mental archive. This post is about getting one of those items off my TODO list :-)

I'm not much of a fan of social networks, but for what it's worth, I've recently started Facebooking more than Orkutting. Specially because of the granularity you can assign to various "friends" on Facebook. I was sick of getting friend requests from random people on Orkut and having to choose between the slightly rude "acquaintance" and the slightly more-warm-that-I'd-like-it-to-be "friend". On the other hand, on Facebook, I can exactly specify how I know the person. So, someone I've interviewed is also on my contact list but with the complete context. And 6 months down the line if I get a scrap ("writing on the wall" in Facebook-speak) I can remind myself of how I know the person. (I know, a little rude to be saying this, but it happens to all of us -- especially me!)

But what simply takes the cake is the way they've phrased the options for the "We dated" section. Apt and to the point. I think it covers almost all the situations in a relationship. Especially the catch-all "It's complicated" bit :-) Take a look for yourself -- click for larger pics.