BT Trax, at a glance

Business Technology Trax ("BT Trax" for short) is our proprietary reporting tool that allows near-real time views into the content and vendors that CNET Network's enterprise site users are interested in. It works by determining which content items (i.e. news stories, white papers) are associated with a technology or company and then tallies the number of times they are read by ZDNet users. BT Trax also provides trending information about these vendors and technology categories.

CNET Networks has developed several proprietary genetic algorithms that actually read content such as articles, whitepapers, transcripts of webcasts and accurately categorizes that content into the stage of the buying process that the content best serves. We combine the analysis made by this algorithm with our knowledge of how people use the site to make sure that user interests are assigned correctly to buying phase and technology category.

Among the applications of the tool is the calculation of the mindshare index, which is the ratio of content consumed, compared to the total information available in a technology segment. In this way, we can see at a glance which companies or technologies are high profile and which are low--a direct view into our audiences' preferences.