Silverlight and Web Analytics – the Next Generation

  • Article

 

Ever since I wrote about Silverlight and Web Analytics (and PDF here) with Silverlight 1, I have been meaning to update the document and guidance for Silverlight 2 and now Silverlight 3.  There are some new features in Silverlight 3 and Expression Blend 3 that really make a compelling case for taking a fresh look at how to measure engagement with RIA and media-oriented applications, especially those created with Expression Blend and presented in Silverlight 3.  Over then next 7 months, I will be working on building a new extensible framework which looks at some of the new scenarios for Web Analytics that are now possible with Silverlight 3 and beyond:

  1. How do you use web analytics with Out-of-Browser application in Silverlight 3?
  2. How do you use web analytics with offline applications in Silverlight 3?
  3. What information is valuable to track in adaptive streaming media scenarios?
  4. How do you make it easy for designers using Expression Blend to configure their application to track events?
  5. How do you use Expression Blend for designing A/B testing scenarios?
  6. How do you use Expression Blend to visualize the results of web analytics data collecting?

Vote for my PanelPicker Idea!As part of this investigation, I will be participating in the XChange conference on Web Analytics next month in San Francisco where I will be leading huddles (conversations) on Measuring RIA Applications and standardizing analytics protocols.

I have also proposed a panel at the South By Southwest (SxSW) conference in Austin next year, The Day the Page Tag Died (sung to the tune of Don McLean’s American Pie – my favorite song) . If you think that this will be an interesting topic, please give it a thumbs-up (even if you’re not planning on attending) as the community feedback influences the panel selection at SxSW.

As I build this extensible framework, I will need help from the analytics vendors to insure that their services work with it.  The plan will be to release the source code via CodePlex, once we have something useable.  So, if you work for a web analytics company and want to participate in building this, please contact me.  This is going to be very cool!