Rich Internet Applications are killing the page view metric
Steve Rubel predicts that the page view, long the dictator of what the new hotness on the internet is, will fall out of fashion in the next few years. The reason?
The page view does not offer a suitable way to measure the next generation of web sites. These sites will be built with Ajax, Flash and other interactive technologies that allow the user to conduct affairs all within a single web page - like Gmail or the Google Reader. This eliminates the need to click from one page to another. The widgetization of the web will only accelerate this.
Well Steve, when you're right, you're right. But I'm a little disappointed that he is killing the page view without offering up a suitable substitute. We would be nowhere without metrics, and the web is no different. So how are we going to measure the popularity of sites on the new web? Hopefully just as our applications get richer, we get richer metrics.
It is going to take some growing pains before the advertising world figures out how to deal with the new age of the web.A good place to start is how much time do users spend with the application on average? The direct marketing approach that pay-per-click has become may not be the best fit for this metric (because you want them off that page and clicking on your ad) but when it comes to building a brand, that's a pretty good metric. What about tracking how the user interacts with the application and using a metric like "interaction rate"? If the user is actively clicking around the application, using it and interacting with it instead of just sitting back, reading a big block of text, does that make the application more valuable for advertisers? Are "active" users more likely to explore advertising on the site?
It is going to take some growing pains before the advertising world figures out how to deal with the new age of the web. Rich Internet Applications are going to give them unparalleled control over how they can display ads and what they can do with advertising. All of this means that money can more effectively be spent, but the industry as a whole needs to do some rethinking from the ground up.