Metrics Metrics Metrics

Last week I was all over Chris Brogan’s blog, and this week it’s the Dachis Group’s apparently. Today I’m all over Kate Niederhoffer’s post called: The Three Masquerades of Metrics.

As the debate over whether Twitter Lists are good or bad ensues, I totally agree that we should be looking for more than just number counts when we look at how people interact with one another.

The Evolution of Numbers

When I was cadet getting my jump wings, an instructor told us all that our view of the first jump would be abysmally small. We wouldn’t know what we were experiencing and sensory overload would give us tunnel vision. Training repetition would come into play, a lot, to get us through the first jump. However, with the experience received from each incremental jump we would be much more aware of our surroundings, and by the fifth jump we’d truly be able to take it all in…

Remember when it was the coolest to put a page counter on your website so that you and the world could understand how many people had clicked on a particular page. As we experienced more, we began to understand that it was relevant to associate a time frame to each click. Measuring visits per day and the amount of time a visit stayed on the page, as opposed to total visits, happened as our experience increased.

This metric evolution will continue to grow with our collective experience on-line. Especially with blog posts like Kate’s pushing us forward.

What Do You Think?

In my mind, time is still an important variable. But I also happen to think that geography and sentiment are of emerging importance. I’m interested to find out what you think of it all, though.