Event
Summary
WebCriteria sells a product that evaluates a website in terms of the reactions
of real surfers, as captured in a model (see TEC article Will
Max Get Mad When He Surfs Your Website?) . The WebCriteria product,
Max, is not a replacement for traditional traffic analysis. It can be
a valuable adjunct that provides insight into why the traffic numbers
come out the way they do. The Global Services division of IBM (NYSE: IBM)
has an ASP product called SurfAid that produces traffic reports for its
users. Under a newly announced partnership, IBM will recommend Max to
its SurfAid customers, and the two companies will share information about
their underlying data formats so that the two products can work smoothly
together.
Market
Impact
The real import of this announcement is that IBM has placed its imprimatur
on the notion that traffic analysis alone does not provide enough detail
for website operators to optimize their sites. This should result in other
traffic analysis vendors, such as Microsoft and WebTrends, announcing
enhancements to their own products that provide similar functionality
to WebCritera's Max. We would not be terribly surprised to hear over the
grapevine that Microsoft has expressed interest in purchasing WebCriteria;
this would fit into its general Site Server strategy of offering sophisticated
tools in a simple package.
User
Recommendations
If the design of your website is probably a critical element in its success
then you are already using a traffic analysis package to understand what
your visitors do. If what you find doesn't meet your expectations, then
WebCriteria's Max may be able to pinpoint design problems that interfere
with your ability to present your message clearly. If you are developing
a new website and are evaluating traffic analysis packages, this announcement
should give a few extra points to IBM's SurfAid.