Jeremy often asks the questions people will be asking next year. Here, Zawodny notes the difficulties as Web 2.0 brings a lot more than pageviews to the browser table and cites this article about how pageviews are problematic as a measure of online success.

There are challenges galore as we move to Web 2.0 analysis. The YouTube deal alone showcases how irrelevant a ‘page view’ may become to full analysis. There, advertisers will probably want a small clip inserted before the video as well as pay per click or aquistion modes of advertising – at least until all advertisers start demanding cost per sale terms.

I think commercial metrics will (must) trend towards firmly establishing costs per sale and/or customer aquisition. At the point where that gets good the advertiser really does not need more detail. Much of the current advertising mis-analysis industry is based on analysis of things that only indirectly lead to sales.

In many cases I’ve been floored by how mathematically unsound so called “objective” conversion studies can be. In Travel and economic development this relates to the fact that those sponsoring the studies typically benefit from high ROI numbers so a cottage industry of “impact inflation” studies and firms has developed that serves the vested interests rather than the taxpayers.

Non commercially focused website metrics are even more complex than commercial, since many bloggers would probably rather be read by a handful of movers and shakers who provide thoughtful commentary than by legions of regular Joes.

A blog read by all G8 world leaders would be about 1000x more influential in terms of changing history than one read by American Idol fans, but would probably have limited commercial value. How do you measure that? Perhaps Yahoo or Google need a “BigWhig Rank” that pulls in personal data and assigns importance to the … person?

Hmmm – they already have been nabbing your search streams so maybe next they’ll take your … soul! I think that is OK with me as long as it’s …. measurable!