This past week we have been studying web analytics. This is the study of the habits of web visitors. According to wikipedia its commercial use is for analyzing traffic to see which aspect of the pages visited get the most attention or which landing pages encourage purchases. On this blog I had next to no traffic, it seems my friends are to busy with careers and children to raise to bother with blogging but I did manage a view hits.

I included a screen shot of my results. Not very impressive. I did like the kind of information presented by Google. It had everything a regular person or professional would need to gage the success or failure of their website. It shows times of when the page was visited, from where the person viewing the page is from, and how long they viewed your page. Having all of that information maybe a bit overwhelming but there would be no excuse for not being able to improve your sites business. If I were a professional I could use this information to see when my peak hours of visits are. Knowing what web browsers are being the most used would help plan the various places to advertise your particular good or service. On mine the two used were FireFox and Internet explorer. I now know that I should put some of my ad budget towards those web Hosts.

Click fraud according to wikipedia is taken really serious in the past few years. Click fraud is when pay-per-click advertising is being used and a person or program imitates users of a web browser to make it look like more people are clicking on to the site then is actually there. I know this is relatively a new crime, but I think it's in the same vain of entrepreneurship as Getty, Rockefeller and Hearst. To rid ones competition by whatever means are available and with new technology comes new opportunity.

The video rant of Chris on Youtube is only the flavor of the week. This person now has popped up on talk shows, TRL on MTV trying to parlay a "crazy" persons rant about Britney Spears. This person has a myspace page that's probably getting millions of hits right now. But in 2 weeks the only people are going to wonder is "who was that crazy looking boy/girl that sceamed over how Brit Brit was treated. I for one would not look to that kind of Youtube generated publicity to advertise on. There is no staying power with such an obvious attempt to be famous for 15 minutes. By the way thirteen are up! Now people with somewhat more creditable ambitions of just being a star f***er like Perez Ito aka Perez Hilton.Next

Next is the issue of companies trying the next new thing when trying to move away from their traditional advertising strategies. The Internet is the most fast-paced, fickle, and unforgiving environment in the new age. It is so lighting fast that last years good idea is now old hat by the next year. Old established companies have been somewhat slow to move in to a world they do not understand. After reading 2nd life, it seemed that a made up world of products and interactive avatars actually wasn't a good idea. I agree not every person on the Internet plans on living there for hours at a time. This wasn't a video game, it was the corporate man making a nuisance of itself. I know some popular video games have product placements in their games but that's because they get paid lots of money for it and the developers decide who they want not the companies. If I were to advise anyone to want to pour money into ad banners I would tell to stick with sites that already have some longevity and have lasted more than a year. Hype can help but almost certainly hurts. Then find websites that they think their core audience would pay attention to their ads. If its sports memorabilia that they are selling then they should pick fantasy sports sites and sports news organizations such as ESPNsports.com or yahoosports.com. Nothing can be for sure just watch Youtube or filecabi.net, there is all kinds of crazy material that people will watch.

Banner ads are advertisements that pop up n the computer screen at every website a person will visit. They a typically 14k in size and generally 4 frames . The try to get they participant interested in a message or product. It's a very small space that can have a huge impact on the product or services being used and can generate millions of dollars for a company.

My experiences with banner ads is that I rarely click on them. I also use pop up blockers that gets rid of a lot of clutter, but still some manage to get through. On websites such as nikeid.com

I will click on different banners to navigate the website. If I do use a banner I try to use ones that look crisp and well developed. I think that if it looks good than it is good.

Banner blindness is a concept that I agree with. Most of the time I don't want to be bothered by cheesy, cheap advertisements or " what I just won" ads that go to some site I'm not even interested in. I hope that I will not have to pursue an advertising career that will consist of having to do those sort of ads to get someones attention. Professional looking banners of legitimate companies that don't lead to porn sites or male enhancement sites would make my web surfing experience a lot more enjoyable.

Behavioral Targeting

Behavioral targeting is is advertisers try to guess what purchasers the consumer will make Or offer suggestions of stuff they might like. My understanding is that contextual advertising ( the practice of matching similar products to similar sites) was to expensive to use on a regular basis. Now by following patterns of use companies can hire ad networks to track cookies left behind to from web browsing and get a picture of what the consumer is into. From the little bits of information a picture of the consumer is established. For example one of the cookies in my browser list was for Aston Martin . When I.m looking for something else on the Internet there might be pop ups of high-end car retailers on websites that I visit. The same could be said when I"m visiting the Northface website for clothes, discounter's outlet banners might appear when I do other searches for certain apparel.

Some of the other cookies I found from ad networks are addoubleclick.net and servedby.advertising.com. The issue of privacy is a big part of using the Internet. I personally erase all files and cookies every time I surf the web. I have always felt that I didn't want to be profiled by companies wanting to sell to me. I all ready know what I want before I go online. Some people might need the extra push to get them interested in products they themselves may not know about. There will always be cost vs. benefit but with the way Internet security is virtually impossible to keep because of some techno geek leaving his laptop on a bus or train I will find programs that keep my web browsing invisible or try to limit my use of the web all together and shop through catalogs.