The Need for Speed

Kudos to Dave Jung of the always-interesting B2Blog.com for bringing up a topic that might seem tired and even quaint in this broadband era: optimizing your site for fast loading.

We live in a world of nanosecond attention spans. That means the speed with which your web pages (particularly your home page) load can mean the difference between a visit or a bounce. As web page design tools get more and more sophisticated, so too do web sites, often with a corresponding decrease in load time. Yes, I admit there is value in having an attractive, engaging site, but if that result comes at the cost of speed, you're probably shooting yourself in the foot. And please keep in mind I am talking about basic web pages here, not the self-indulgent Flash monstrosities that take 30 seconds to load in order to deliver another 30 seconds of information-free graphics and sound. And since I mentioned sound, I'd also like to suggest that you carefully consider the value of loud music and audio sales pitches on a B2B site, particularly on a home page. B2B sites are often accessed in open spaces and during meetings. What are the trade-offs of potentially embarrassing your visitors the moment they hit your site?

I also see issues with ad networks that serve ads from their own servers. I've had more than a few home pages essentially freeze on me as the home page desperately tries to download a display ad from an ad network server. Advertising is supposed to engage users, not frustrate them.

In short, rapidly increasing download speeds for more users hasn't actually erased all the issues relating to speed, because too many publishers have now constructed such elaborate sites they that have negated the value of all this additional download speed. Yes, in an era of seemingly "no limits," there are still some lines that should not be crossed.

The solution? First and foremost, make sure you are logging into your own site regularly - and not just from your office, where you might not get a true picture of what the rest of the world is experiencing. Also, Dave helpfully suggested two tools: Page Speed from Google and YSlow from Yahoo that both test site download speed and suggest ways to improve it.

Labels: b2blog.com

Roadmap to Success

It's now almost de rigueur for data publishers to offer some sort of mapping option within their online products. Nine times out of ten, this is a simple link to Google Maps based on the street address of the company whose listing information is being viewed. There's absolutely nothing wrong with this, provided that publishers don't fool themselves about how much added value this provides to users, which is ... not much. At best, you're saving the user a few clicks. That's because basic street maps, like so many things online, are widely available for free.

But there is more to mapping than basic street maps, and there are real opportunities for data publishers to take their mapping capabilities beyond just an afterthought. What got me thinking about this was the announcement by MapQuest of a new mapping product complete with an API to make it easy to integrate into your own data product. What is offered in this premium product is several location-based datasets. Suddenly, mapping is more than where you are. It's now what's around you.Consider the possibilities. With this MapQuest product, you can overlay Census demographics, Congressional district boundaries, the name, SIC and location of over 13 million businesses, location of every U.S. public school, areas of traffic congestion and accidents, and a whole lot more. While every data product serves a different market and user need, I think the concept is clear: It's becoming a lot easier to integrate your data with third party data to develop very powerful and very valuable mapping applications. Don't underestimate the power of data visualization to set your data product apart.

Of course, the next logical step is then to allow your users to upload their own data, so their stores, sales offices, factories or whatever can be plotted alongside your data, as well as third party data. There are lots of different angles here, but they all start with a firm understanding of what kinds of data and applications your customers need.

Finally, because one of the beauties of the data business is that it's always a two-way street, you might want to consider whether your own location-based data might be something that MapQuest might want to license from you.

Right now, sophisticated mapping applications are the road less traveled by most data publishers, but for many, now's the time to chart a course to greater profits.

Labels: MapQuest

Data Recovery

You probably know about the big initiative in Washington to put more government data online, more quickly and more accessibly, in order to promote government transparency. A much-touted early pilot for this new initiative is Recovery.gov, designed to provide total transparency on the spending of $787 billion in federal stimulus money.

I'll admit right away that the Recovery.gov website is head-and-shoulders above the other federal agency websites I have used, both in terms of interface, navigation and ease-of-use. The problem with Recovery.gov, however, is that according to an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer, it is woefully behind in reporting contract awards.

If you find it frustrating that you can't get access to these contract awards, don't be. You simply need to go to a different site, Recovery.org. This site offers vastly more contract awards data under the stimulus program, but it's not a government website. In fact, it's operated by 2008 InfoCommerce Model of Excellence award winner Onvia.

Onvia, which reports contract awards at the federal, state and local levels, has spent years developing data feeds from government agencies, supplemented by its own compilation efforts. It's also developed sophisticated software to normalize and process all these disparate data feeds. Result: Onvia can post contract award data faster than the U.S. Government, which is writing all the checks.Onvia isn't entirely selfless in its launch of Recovery, org, which is free to use. The site also shows users how much additional contract information Onvia can make available on a paid subscription basis. In short, Recovery.org is a clever and powerful sales promotion tool.

Is the government committed to improving its Recovery.gov site? You bet. In fact, it's just let an $18 million contract to that end. Did this contract end up in the hands of Onvia, which not only has demonstrated its skills, but controls high-value data feeds to speed receipt of contract data? What do you think? According to eWeek.com, the contract went to a company called Smartronix, which is going to build all this functionality from scratch. A quick peek at the company's own website tells me it fairly earns the moniker "Beltway bandit," with its long list of government clients, and no evidence it has ever built a B2B website before, much less one designed primarily for consumer use.

Sometimes transparency just confirms what you could have just guessed.

Labels: onvia

Top-Level Domainia

Until recently, ICANN, the body charged with administering the domain naming system, has been very stingy about authorizing new top-level domains (e.g. .com, .net, .biz). Now, however, it's apparently open season. Anyone with $185,000 can have a top-level domain of their own.

Implications? Well first, it's a bit more hassle, confusion and complexity for those of us whose business involves gathering and maintaining this information. Second, it's a potential area of opportunity. Consider a legal publisher that buys the top-level domain ".law" and offers it to its advertisers, or hosts websites for law firms listed in its database. This could be an exciting marketing gambit.

But more profoundly, this move marks increasing erosion in one of the core uses of many directory products: providing basic company contact information. Think about it: you don't need a directory (or a search engine for that matter) to find the website for Microsoft, because the odds are very good that if you type the name of any big company followed by ".com," you'll easily get to that company's website. Should Microsoft acquire the ".microsoft" top-level domain, it will likely get even easier. Many web pundits believe that in the near future, you'll simply type "Microsoft" into your browser, and if Microsoft owns the corresponding top-level domain, you'll go right to it site.

The lesson here, which I've stated many times before, is that basic company contact information has become a commodity, and this new development even further erodes its value. If you think the $185,000 will keep a lid on things, don't forget innovative services like Telnic* that is vying to become a central company phone book on the web. Still not convinced? Then go over to Jigsaw (2005 Model of Excellence winner), which offers its database of 2.6 million company records free for the downloading.

The bottom line is that if "industry phone directory" is a part of the value proposition of your data product, it's well past time to start moving it up the value chain.

*Telnic is a 2009 Model of Excellence finalist, and its CTO, Henri Asseily, will explain how the company is executing on its vision at this year's InfoCommerce Data Content09 conference.

Model of Excellence Awards

We are pleased to announce that Netprospex Inc. is a finalist for an InfoCommerce 2009 Model of Excellence awards.

Review the Netprospex Model of Excellence profile here

Hear Netprospex Founder & CEO Gary Halliwell at DataContent 09
DataContent 09: All Roads Lead to Data. Full program here.

Labels: ICANN, jigsaw, netprospex, telnic

A Database from Wal-Mart

Giant retailer Wal-Mart, as part of a number of bold moves in recent years to improve its image as a good corporate citizen, has just announced that it is now going to display eco-ratings on the products it sells. There's only one small catch, of course: such ratings do not currently exist. Wal-Mart, however, has the answer: it is going to insist that its suppliers participate in this initiative, with Wal-Mart funding the development effort.

Wal-Mart sees this as a three-step process: first, collect data from its suppliers that will be input into a central database. The second step is to collaborate with universities and other groups to work through the various weights to be assigned to each data element. The third step will be to translate the weighted data into a single "sustainability index number," that will essentially reflect how green a product is in terms of how it is manufactured, how it is distributed, and the extent to which it can be recycled.

But just because Wal-Mart is behind this initiative, it's not a closed system. Wal-Mart has publicly stated that it wants to develop a universal sustainability index for all products, and it wants other companies to participate. The product database, as we understand it, will be publicly accessible both to promote transparency, and to spur ancillary uses of the information.

This is a huge initiative, and one that many others have looked at, although generally on a less ambitious scale. Offering meaningful sustainability ratings is not only a worthwhile business, it can be a lucrative business as well. The key, of course, is getting market acceptance and critical mass. That where it helps to have the clout of Wal-Mart, with sales equating to 2% of GDP, and a proven willingness to use supplier mandates to enforce participation.

This is a project to watch as it takes shape over the next few years. Data publishers may want to start carrying sustainability index data along with product information (again, our understanding is that Wal-Mart will make this information publicly available). There may also be some interesting spin-off opportunities in crunching and re-packaging the underlying dataset.

Will Wal-Mart succeed? There's certainly no guarantee, but nothing populates a database faster than a major customer asking its vendors to provide them with some information.

-- @infocommerce

Labels: sustainability rating, twitter:infocommerce, wal-market