Eric is running a survey to get a handle on the ‘State of the Industry’.  Please take a few minutes out of the routines and supply him with some solid information on where we all stand. The link is available here: Please take our Fall 2007 survey.

As Wikipedia defines it, Web 2.0 is…”a perceived second generation of web-based communities and hosted services — such as social-networking sites, wikis and folksonomies — which aim to facilitate collaboration and sharing between users.”

This definition has a few bugs, but the point is clear. The idea of having two-way communication, or dyadic communication, is the goal of those applications seeking the illustrious designation of 2.0, at their very minimum. Ultimately, the concept, at least in my opinion, is that the posting of information in a social context, is to share ideas and incite discussion about the topics that are discussed by a relatively informed and intelligent readership. Although, readership still implies one-way communication, doesn’t it?

Maybe a more appropriate Web 2.0 term should be ‘dyadership’ or ‘commership’ (implying commenting-readership) or some other clever bastardization of technobabble. I honestly can’t think of an appropriate massaging of ‘Dyad’. Of course, having that opens a whole new rabbit-hole for measuring and discussing how a blog measures its engagement and its apparent value to the public. Not how many people “See” or “Read” your stuff, but what percentage of those visitors volunteer perspective to grow your footprint for that specific subject on the web.

Recently, while attending a Shop.org conference event in Las Vegas, I had the opportunity to listen to a presentation given by David Weinberger, PhD (a Research Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School). While a portion of this was dedicated to bridging the gap between his two major works: ‘”The Cluetrain Manifesto” and “Everything is Miscellaneous“; a significant idea advanced by Dr. Weinberger was the inversion of a long-established social and commercial truth that the agency which controlled data, controlled the message. This is, by many standards, no longer considered absolute, and much less manageable with respect to the internet and the infinitely exponential calculations of people x opinions x venues.

Controlling the message now has a negative reaction from the perceptive open dialog of the world. Whether your site’s purpose is informational, functional, or commercial there is a measurable population comprising a ‘well of opinion’ about your brand, your product, your message, and, sadly, your personnel. To paraphrase Carrie Fisher as ‘Princess Leia’: ‘The more you tighten your grip…the more (insert Web 2.0 term) slip through your fingers”.

As a high profile example of this behavior, I would like to point to exhibit “A”: Washington Wizard’s Gilbert Arenas making predictions on his “Blog” about scoring and upcoming games, as well as compiling a catalog of excruciatingly calculated self-laudatory injections about his skill set and value as a player. Disclaimer: I’m a huge Boston Celtics fan. I also do not personally know Mr. Arenas and limit my commentary to his publication.

If anyone has been paying attention, the NBA season tipped-off last week. With its commencement, the Boston Celtics, a team which I am a lifetime fan, amped up their crowd in a pleasing display of teamwork and success with new additions Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, a determinant Paul Pierce, and the sharp-shooting of Rajan Rondo. Late in the third quarter of this collaborative clinic on teamwork, the rowdy and playoff-starved crowd, and the newly knighted Red Auerbach Court began rumbling and repeating the word “Gilbert”. I became curious. The commentators eventually divulged that the Gilbert to whom the crowd referred was Gil Arenas.

Mr. Arenas days prior posted on what he and others call his blog:

“So listen here. On November 2nd, we’re going to go into that building, we’re opening up Boston. Right now I’m telling the Boston fans: You guys are going to lose. It’s not going to be a victory for Boston. You might as well just cheer for me, because Boston isn’t winning in Boston for the season opener. I’m sorry.”

The outcome was a decisive Boston win: 103-83 final. A fitting start to a season which began with a gift from former Celtic Kevin McHale trading out Garnett from Minnesota. The win was apparently the only comment which held any meaning as far as Arenas, the Washington Wizards, or the NBA was concerned. No other commentary is allowed on his blog.

Sure, there are certainly reasons why this makes sense. There are too many people in Boston willing to comment on such statements before and after the game - memory consideration. The platform is hosted on NBA.com - obscenity and liability considerations. He talked trash in the town where it was invented - bandwidth considerations. But, no matter what the consideration, this ‘Blog’ is really no more than bad single-mode PR. On the other hand, what if commentary was allowed? How would that affect his play? How could he improve his image, his accuracy, and his public perception if he could be so bold as to gain insight from the feedback he received? What about Gilbert Arenas - the Open Brand….?

From an analytics and a Web 2.0 perspective, this is an example of a hit-counter. Nothing more than sophisticated than the electronic media equivalent of the tree in the woods. If a blog exists and produces information that nobody can share in and help define, it will soon be relegated to dusty shelves like the Atari and the Betamax.

Google’s wonderfully free Website Optimizer tool just got a little better. Apparently, they’ve heard enough of us complaining about the problems which existed with the cookie life. Previously this was only available on a session basis. So, no matter how long you set the cookie for, it would expire or disappear with the closure of a browser or tab. In theory, the session could last with a refresh for up to the amount of time specified in the _utimeout function of the script which was placed on the cookie.

As of 7pm, 1 November 2007, this cookie is now set for a specified life of up to 2 years across sessions. Specificity regarding the creation date of the experiment is a consideration. About that Google stated:

“Experiments created prior to October 30, 2007 won’t use these new
cookies — this will include follow-up experiments and copied
experiments created after October 30 that are based on original
experiments that were created prior to October 30. For example, if you
created an original experiment on October 10th 2007, then created a
follow-up experiment based on the original on November 10th, 2007,
that follow-up would not use 2-year cookies. “

You can check out the rest of the details if you want to by clicking into their WebEx Playback here. The original release of this information is also available through the Google Website Optimizer BETA forum.

As always, I love to talk about these types of things. If anyone has any questions or comments about how to deal with GWO, or problems with specific testing scenarios, please feel free to drop a line. Please also remember to sift through some of the testing “tagged” posts if you need any help getting some more advanced testing done. I previously posted a great deal about Taguchi Multivariate Tests, conversion proxies, and cookie manipulation on my old blog. I’ll be migrating parsed versions of these very soon.