BT Trax, at your service

What gives? While our flashy sister site GameSpot is on the verge of handing out an industry award at E3 based on nothing but real-time user data tracked by GameSpot Trax, our own version of the market intelligence tool, BT Trax, has not lived up to the potential it has to inform and impress our readers. In fact, whenever we post Trax data, it's usually met with a fair share of skepticism and confusion (see here, here, and here) over what it is that it’s revealing.  Then we, in turn, elaborate and clarify what we mean by the calculations and, more so, the term we use to describe our attention metric: mindshare.

The problem we face is that the tool is revolutionary: it's a first-of-its-kind algorithm created by CNET Networks that provides real-time behavior-based insight into market trends. So we're experimenting with it and discovering ways to slice and dice the mountain of data we sit on. But to describe it clearly has been an ongoing challenge for the team. So were looking to you for help. You may have noticed that this site has top company pages with regularly updated mindshare tables, for example Cisco.  Well, we are planning to axe them--at least temporarily--since they're not getting the clicks they should be nor appear to generate any nuance of buzz. What do you think? Will you miss them? And how about you decide what information is important. What would you like to see more of? Which white papers are downloaded most? Which companies are getting the most attention in a certain category? Or how about a comparison of two standards, like WiMax vs. WiFi over the last six months, for instance.  We have the data, and would be more than happy to carve it anyway you'd like.