With both large real and hidden opportunity costs associated with evaluating, implementing, and learning the quirks of a new analytics tool, it only makes sense to ensure that the tool one chooses will be able to keep pace with one´s future requirements. So in order to evaluate tools correctly people need to be aware of the changes that are occurring in the online world as this will influence what data will be important to collect and leverage in the future. In this article I wanted to outline some of the top trends that are impacting the online marketing world so that when someone makes an analytics tool evaluation they are creating a framework for the future.

Part 2 of Framing the Future: the Real Time Web Reality

The most important trend this year is the advance of the “real-time” web, because this concept has changed the products and strategies of almost every major Internet company in 2009. In fact, it has become a core part of many Internet products this year: Twitter, FriendFeed (now Facebook), Facebook itself, Google, Delicious, Wordpress, and many more.

However, the “real-time" web in 2009 implies both real time immediacy as well as the social graph associated with it. Real time is immediate in terms of “what are you doing right now?” updates, but the social graph portion also makes it a great indicator of the trends, interests, topics, and intentions that will ultimately lead to additional revenue streams as companies learn to react.

Think of the rapid changes that create additional revenue streams in e-commerce, travel, news, and retail sites today. Now think of the flood of additional real time feeds and applications that may impact your ability to sell or disseminate PR now or in the near future. Even if you do not have a real time web oriented business, your current and potential customers are using “real-time” communication devices to talk about your product or services. Ideally an analytics tool should also be able to scan social media for positive and negative sentiments and then incorporate this data into your analytics dashboard. So it makes sense to find a tool that also has the functionality to track and present social graph data in order to position your company to be able to respond appropriately.

As for the benefits of real time immediacy, the time when management used to fear expensive mistakes is over because when resources are cheap and digital you can take more risks and fail fast. So even though some may argue that real time data might be messier, the pivoting ability for your company and your marketing channels can be made much faster. For example, you will be able to tweak features, ads, and marketing campaigns in a faster time frame. In other words, if each person can monitor in real time how certain segments are reacting and then make the appropriate adjustments the repercussions can be more beneficial than doing the same adjustments in a lagged time frame.

Thus, as the internet eco-system changes around us, the real time web combined with social media will become increasingly important. So one should evaluate an analytics tool on whether or not it can enable (now or in the future) your employees to have access to real time data so that they then can at least have the possibility to create more revenue-enhancing responses.

This is Part 2: The Real Time Web Reality, of a Five Part Series; See also Part 1: Data Trumps Everything, and tomorrow - Part 3: Data Filtering and Visualization Capabilities Matter.

Cecily Robyn Lough has over 15 years experience in pulling actionable insights from online marketing data. She is currently Director of International Sales at Webtrekk GmbH, a leading Web Analytics company based in Berlin, Germany. Please contact her through LinkedIn or at cecilyspeaks@gmail.com.

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