We're in part 7 with one more post to go in this arc. Here we're looking at Level of Interest as discussed in Defining Attention on Websites & Blogs. Yes, I know other folks are suggesting they can correctly determine visitors' attention on a website. I disagree with their methodology and not just because NextStage does it differently. I would disagree simply because what they're measuring doesn't equate to attention or level of interest in any neuroscience, cognitive science, behavioral science, {pick your adjective} science that I'm aware of.
Here you see the Level of Interest in this blog's content over a seven day period. Pretty much this image is indicating that there was lots of interest in my blog from 24-29 Aug '07 (must have lots of weekend readers) with specific peaks on the 27th and 29th.
Well, what was I posting about on those days?
For example, the chart here is for the same period of time as above but is an aggregate of some 30 randomly chosen sites in our system. Evidently 29 Aug '07 was simply a day of interest across the board. This doesn't mean this blog wasn't interesting in and of itself, only that visitors to sites in general were showing more interest than they were on most other days. How come? Could be people were planning for the long weekend and didn't feel like focusing on the job. There are ways to know and that's beyond the purpose of this arc. 
Interestingly, things like having high levels of interest and attention across the board happen. Tex, one of our researchers who comments on our political research fairly often, noted that New England based people browsing during the 2004 baseball season demonstrated activity closely matched to how the Red Sox were doing in the playoffs.
One other time our staff sociologist noticed that people's anxiety levels closely matched where they were in their tax preparation cycle over a weekend. Fascinating stuff. To us, anyway.
Previous topics in this arc included:
- Are Visitors Getting Good Value?
- Are Visitors Having a Good Experience?
- Do you have more men or women visiting your site?
- Returning Visitors and How Many?
- How Many Real, Live People Are on Your Site?
- What's the Age Breakdown of Your Visitors?
- Are Visitors Interested in Your Content?
Please contact NextStage for information regarding presentations and trainings on this and other topics.
Upcoming Conferences:
- IMedia Brand Summit on 9-12 Sept 07
- XChange on 20-21 Sept 07
- DC Emetrics Summit on 14-17 Oct '07
- Society for New Communications Research Annual Research Symposium & Awards Gala on 5-6 Dec 07 in Boston.
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