Web Analytics monitors YOU.WEBSITE

Internet is widely used and the easiest way to make use of in gathering and analyzing data. Different websites are been visited to collect data by internet-users. It shows that many internet users are very active globally whether what the purposes are and what web sites are been visited.

Website is composed of related WebPages based on content and purpose of the site. Website can be personal, commercial, government and non-profit organization. It is designed and created by web developers and programmers, its purpose is to deliver good communication and inform target website audience.

Nowadays, in business field, web sites are been used to inform target customers about what the company offers like goods and services, updates are also posted and other information that concerns to the customers and other web sites visitors.

According to the Web Analytics Association, “Objective tracking, collection, measurement, reporting and analysis of quantitative Internet data to optimize websites and web marketing initiatives.”


WEB 2.0

Web 2.0 is known to be the second generation of web development and web design, as what I learned from my WEBDESIGN course at De La Salle – Canlubang, creating a website needs to determine the purpose of creating the site and the owner and web developer should cooperate to each other. Web 2.0 is the introduction which leads to the development and evolution of web-based communities, hosted services and web applications.

Web analytics is where the collection, analysis and reporting of internet data are being measure and evaluate for purposes of understanding and optimizing web usage.

According to the book of Web Analytics by Kaushik, “Web Analytics Should Be Click Density Analysis, Visitor Primary Purpose, Task Completion Rates, Segmented Visitor Trends and Multichannel Impact Analysis.”

Web sites has category which includes Social-networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis blogs, mashups and folksonomies. Nowadays Social-networking sites has been popular at any range of age in different countries. Last May 08, 2008, its been reported by New York-based media agency Universal McCann, that the study shows that 15% Internet penetration and estimates 37 million are active users (aged between 16 to 54), or those who go online daily or every other day in the Philippines.

One way to gather internet user’s feedback or insight towards the site is the Website Survey, which is very effective to measure the customer’s satisfaction rate and help web sites to get better in a competitive industry in business’ perspectives.

Like in MySpace website and other social networking site, the sites have web site survey to fill up when the customer decided to unsubscribe from their account. All the questions in the survey have choices like “Do you have other account? Choices are Friendster, Facebook, Hi5, others.” This question is one of the bases reasons why the customer decided to unsubscribe to MySpace account and this result will also show the MySpace main competitors by the number of frequency per choices and other conclusion can also be determine.

By gathering data from those survey questionnaires, the company will be able to analyze the gathered data and make use of that information to development and solve the issues that the company is facing. Customer’s feedback can only judge the company’s/website’s performance based on their experiences.


GOOGLE ANALYTICS

Google Analytics (GA) is one of the popular offered by Google; it shows the statistics about the website visitors. Knowing the percentage (even number of viewers) per WebPages, how long it takes them to stay or leave at the site and if the viewers think that the site he/she visited is useless. Information that is not effective or useless to the viewers can easily be analyzed based on the percentage of viewers that Google Analytics shows. Using Google Analytics, it will easily determine if the website you have if effective in online communication and measures what performance rate you have to your viewers.

Every Google Analytics users are allowed to add up to 50 site profiles in their account. Each profile usually corresponds to one website. This is limited to the sites that have traffic of less than 5 million Webpage views per month (approximately 2 page views per second), except if the site is liked to an AdWords campaign.

It is effective and freeware is the Google Analytics. Like what our Datamin class under Mr. Duremdes at De La Salle – Canlubang, we sign-up at Google Analytics account and monitor our own blogspot account to know who visited, the signs and dates are also indicated.

Many Companies offers differrent tools based on what industry, capabilities and purpose the tools will be apply. It’s been stated that “Most people are introduced to web analytics via reports coming out of a web log parser, Google Analytics, or maybe one of the high-end tools.” by Kaushik.

It is hard to analyze gathered reports or data especially if there are a lot but trying to make use of them will definitely help any organizations to improve their performance.

Having the web analytics reports will determine the efficiency to the page viewers and in the long-run this will solve or answer the customer’s needs whatever the concerns are.

Know your company, your Reputation explains it.

Reputation represents your standing, status, distinction, and renown about your company. All companies want to have a good impression to the Industry to gain respect and continuously patronized by others. To know your reputation status, gathering data or researching will answer your concerns in mind.

Before at the early century, gathering data is a hard task and most of the needed data cannot be collected at any cost. Manual gathering of data like researching and conducting surveys is the effective way to do it and yet it cost a lot and it consumes a lot of time to do it. Some finishes it but it was not needed anymore due to the time duration.

Since Internet connection was invented, transferring of information from one place to another channel is now possible. It makes the researcher task more easier and faster compare before and it is more reliable. Websites should have a strong integrity and reputation to put in the list updates or reference of sites.


Taking advantage to the use of the Internet is part of the competitive advantage. Building your own E-portfolio like resume, blogs, biographical information and gallery are just some of the examples that will definitely market you online and create a name in the internet world. This should offers information that can contribute to solve the problems that others are experiencing. E-portfolio should be understandable based on the viewers your company has.

Why, When, Where, and How to Monitor.

Somehow you cannot control what others think about your company that is why; you have to be aware about what others think about you and the reputation you have. It is suggested to monitor in answering what to monitor are about the company’s own brands, Company name, Products and Services, Executives and Spokespeople, Marketing Campaigns, Industry Trends, Competitors and lastly your known weaknesses. It can be monitored where? In Industry Blogs, Vertical Communities, Employee Hangouts and Business Locations are some of the category to choose from. There are a lot of monitoring tools available on how to gathered information from different 12 conversations (from Radically Transparent Book).

Do It Yourself

Monitoring your reputation through different kinds of online monitoring tools is available and accessible way for an individual user and most especially in the corporate industry. This will help the company to develop and solve several problems at the fastest way and at the same time understanding the situation of the customers, stakeholder, competitors and other viewers.

According to the book of Radically Transparent by Andy Beal and Dr. Judy Strauss, stated about “Three Essential Do-It-Yourself Monitoring Tools."

· RSS (Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary) Reader
It filters the needed information into specific content. One of the best RSS readers is Google Reader. Lot of information shows using this reader, most of the websites even shows the number of subscriber per website which somehow helps the user to choice what is more reliable sources. Customizing your own RSS Reader page is also available at Netvibes.com

· E-mail Updates
It is very suitable for those who have no time to search with the updated news and does not know to use RSS Reader but this will definitely flood your e-mail due to the lots of updates (based on my experience). It is very user friendly and no hassle at all, you can also unsubscribe whenever you do not want to receive any updates anymore. FeedBlitz.com is another example which converts RSS reader into e-mail.

· Tracking Software
Copernic Tracker is one the best and reliable monitoring tools but it is quite expensive but onetime fee of estimated fifty dollars (or P2,500). Tracking Software helps to tracks what they called “untrackable”. Every changes in the web content will be known and inform to the tracking software subscriber. Knowing the immediate changes will result to a good execution of decision in the within the company.

There are other information that are hard to find and even hard to categorize just to be more specific in getting the needed information. In prestigious company, categorizing or dividing the task in collecting data is easier for the presenter and to who to present the data to be understandable at the same time organize.

Like what happened in the (Government Service Insurance System) GSIS, the company is encountering a problem in DB2 database management software of IBM Corporation started last March 30, 2009. According to the GSIS, “About 90 percent of the GSIS’s operations were adversely affected by the IBM-DB2 crash. Thousands of loans and claims of GSIS members could not be processed, membership records could not be updated, transactions could not be recorded, and a sizeable data in the GSIS database were either corrupted or lost temporarily.”

This problem will not only affect the company but at the same time, the customers and its stakeholders will be affected. GSIS for sure will receive several comments, suggestions, questions, and complaints from different people. The company should be aware about how the reputation they have in this situation and how does will affect the company in the long-run.

Gathering data from 12 conversation channels are social media and blogs, Google’s network, Industry news, Stakeholder conversations, Social communities, Social bookmarking sites, Multimedia content, Forums and message boards, Customer reviews, Brand profiles and Web analytics will be helpful as a guide to solve those reactions.

The GSIS will not just suffer in terms of cost (at least P5 billion) in actual damages as a result of the system crashes but at the same time the GSIS will suffer the reputation they have.

While in PhilHealth, the company has its own division for Health Informatics, an office of the Quality Assurance Research and Policy Development Group, accountable for the development of Health Informatics (Medical Database) for simple reference of Officers in-charge in the improvement of health-related policies/guidelines. The division shall also perform on-line studies about drugs and health technology among others here and abroad, sort out the information gathered depending on the need of the group and update the database for easy recovery.

PhilHealth can use the available monitoring tools to gather information to conduct the desired research easily, not time consuming and in reliable way. Monitoring tools does not just about know your reputation but is will also help the company to solve the problems and serves as the basis in conducting a research.

In a big companies like PhilHealth, it is suggested to use Copernic Tracker or Technorati or other online monitoring tools that would cater such company because dealing with lots of needed information every single days or even hours means a lot to the company. This will improve the services that would meet or rather exceed the customer’s expectations and satisfaction.


Reputation Manager

After choosing what monitoring tools to use for the company, there should be assign personnel that can be in-house or outsource, depends on the company’s choice. Dealing with a lot of information, someone especially in a big company, there should be a division allocated that deals with the result of the monitoring tools used. Without the proper separation or filtering of data from the result, the gathered data will be useless and a waste.

But it is suggested to hire within the company because out-sourcing personnel might think that specific information is not important for the company and yet for the company’s manager perspective it is. The employees within the company know the company itself and the loyalty, responsibility and strong tights the employee has, will filter the data accordingly which will solve the problems and improve company’s status.

If the comments from the net become essential and talked about, it is the time where the company needs to be alert and monitor the comments posted. BlogPulse and Technorati are some of the tools that can be used for the comments updates regarding to your company.

One of the professional monitoring services is the Sentiment Analysis Spreadsheet. Benchmarking in monitoring tools results by showing the percentage of the positive and negative outcomes about your company will be shown.

While the Automated Monitoring with Manual Analysis like ACS’s Serph (without any cost) monitors sites like Technorati, Google and Flickr, without too much effort in searching, this automated monitoring will make it easier for the user to show the result with the different monitoring tools all are in the same time.

According to the Radically Transparent by Andy Beal and Dr. Judy Strauss, “In fact, at our last count more than 80 different vendors around the world offered some kind of professionally managed reputation-monitoring services.”

It really depends on the user what tools is appropriate for them to use that will feel them comfortable and appropriate. There are a lot of tools available, some are expensive but others are affordable.

Like what Insurance group in our Datamin class at De La Salle University - Canlubang under Mr. Duremdes, our group use different Monitoring Online Tools to track down information in different conversation channels using Google alert, ACS's Serph, bloglines.com, Technorati and Boardtracker.com, we also track down information regarding to our five main competitors.

Trying different monitoring tools won’t hurt you instead it will expand your knowledge and gathered more useful data for your company.

Always keep in mind that if ever there are either good or bad that attacks regarding to your company, reputation-monitoring tools will lead you to track down things easily.

Data Mining Tools creates Efficiency

According to Management Information Systems, “Data mining tools are the software tools you use to query information in a data ware house”.

It is the manipulation in the databases that include query-and-reporting tools, intelligence agents, multidimensional analysis tools, and statistics tools. A lot of queries need answers at the fastest and most reliable way. Data mining tools is one popular and effective way to do it. Data mining tools are useful in forecasting trends and behaviors that allow businesses or organizations to have better information that will contribute in the decision making which leads to a competitiveness.

The concept of Data mining is used decades ago in different industries and incredible progress as the years goes on that meets the needs of the user in decision making.

Evolution of business data to business information are Data Collection (1960s), Data Access (1980s), Data Warehousing and Decision Support (1990s) and last but not the least Data Mining (emerging today). Businesses collected data from surveys, research information and analyzed information and previous transactions that are large quantities inputted in databases. As the needed information of every business arises, the evolution of business data creates a way to diversify the information into a specific detail with a high percentage of accuracy and rapid response.

The Scope of Data Mining
Thearling discussed about the new business opportunities take place because of the two capabilities of data mining:

-Automated prediction of trends and behaviors, this answers can be easily detects from the data quickly even in the large databases.

-Automated discovery of previously unknown patterns, this data mining tools classify previously hidden patterns in one step in the databases.

This is very effective in Statistical Qualitative Control to avoid having deficiencies and errors in the production area. It will give a better forecasting that will minimize cost and will make a gain to compete in competitive advantage. Using the previous data, the abnormality will be easily detected based on the unknown patterns and having this information, management or operation management will immediately analyze the cause and decide which solution or strategy will be executed to the given situation.

A Database needs a reliable and appropriate Hard disk drive, RAM (Random Access Memory), ROM (Read Only Memory) so that it will perform well. The faster it works the more chances for the users to experiment and test all the data mining tools to get the appropriate solution and easily understand complex data.

According to Gartner Group Advanced Technology Research Note, “With the rapid advance in data capture, transmission and storage, large-systems users will increasingly need to implement new and innovative ways to mine the after-market value of their vast detail data, employing MPP [massively parallel processing] systems to create new sources of business advantage.”

The concept of data mining is known before and much more when the evolutions of technology boost in the market. The demand of the use of data mining is high and the development of this computer tools is continuous. Especially to the large business and organization, data mining tools makes the decision making easier to decide and quick to achieve the result.

There are different kinds of data mining tools available in the market and after choosing what data mining tools to use, building appropriate model is important.

Ever since building model are applied before the beginning of computers or data mining technology. Building model will help to know the answer in the certain situation using the data you have. If the formulated model is good, there is a high chance of getting the optimal answer you want to apply in the current situation.


DNA of a forensic accountant is one of example that used data mining tools in the field of science. DNA of a forensic accountant which used data mining to analyze large quantities of information that identify trends or inconsistencies, ambiguous facts in a inclusive and well-organized method using “intelligent” computer applications. Like other computer software and application tools, it aims optimization that reduces costs and maximizes profits and develops a strong customer relationship.

An Algorithm is a step by step instructions created by the users to solve a problem in a specific situation. While in the concept of data mining, algorithms are formulated to find relations and in sets of data in a database.

Excerpted from the book Building Data Mining Applications for Customer Relationship Management by Alex Berson, Stephen Smith, and Kurt Thearling.

Two sections of the most common data mining algorithms use today:

-Classical Techniques: Statistics, Neighborhoods and Clustering

These techniques are widely used since early 1980. Statistics is a mathematical approach that is known to its probability which predicts the possibilities of outcomes that might occur or takes place. Neighborhoods is a technique that shows the similarities in the databases. While Clusters allows the data to group together based on the needed information of the user.

In Philhealth (Philippine government corporation), questions like what are the chances of 20% increase of new customers? Which patterns are significant in previous customer records? Those are just an example of questions that most people want to know that statistics can contribute. While Neighborhoods, shows the similarities in the records of customers just in a minute, depends how large the database is. Lastly clustering data, like for example the age, gender and address of the customers can contribute in marketing and other queries that can develop better services to the customers. PRIZM system and MicroVision are the two examples of clustering systems that can be used. Using data mining tools, Philhealth management can come up in planning the finest decision possible.

-Next Generation Techniques: Trees, Networks and Rules

It is the most common techniques used that build a predictive models, this leads to discover new information. Decision Tree breaks down the information in the databases that will show the useful information to the question you want to answer. Networks can detect patterns or trends in connected networks or nodes that can solve difficult problems and create decisions. A Rule has limitation to gather the needed data with the use of “if this and this and this then this”.

DATAMIN course and our Professor Mr. Duremdes at De La Salle Canlubang help us to somehow relates in deciding data mining tools to use in a certain situation in I.T perspective. Data mining tools are quick to run and give result at the minimum time, to determine the best techniques, trial and error can be done to see which techniques to use however decisions are made by the user whether to use the result in data mining tools or not. Knowledge worker should choose the most appropriate data mining tools based on what information in the database is all about, when to use the chosen techniques which leads to a competitive advantage, why it is needed in the business or organization and who will create and apply the data mining tools.

.All About Rinalyn.

.HERSELF.

A typhoon came and the electricity at the Victoria Muntinlupa City Subdivision has been cut off and there was an unstoppable lightning. The day has come, October 10 year 1988; a healthy baby girl was born. Spouse namely Rufino and Lani named her Rinalyn, which is the third child of the family. As she grew up, she’s been active in any outdoor sports and likes to watch television and play online computer games. She was boyish in most of her childhood days. Instead of playing dolls, she preferred touch ball and home base. She loves her family so much and she treasure LIFE especially after her father died at her age of 14. At the moment Rinalyn likes to read books and to watch Asian drama series or movies as her hobbies.

.HER STUDIES and SCHOOL.

Holy Infant Academy is her first school because it is the nearest school at that time. After moving in Laguna, Rinalyn transfer school to Dominican College Sta. Rosa at grade 6 level. It was not easy for her because of the unfamiliar atmosphere and she is quite afraid on how to deal to her new classmates.

During high school, Rinalyn does not take studying seriously because she is still adjusting to her environment and somehow she thinks that education is not that important nor she cannot foresee the significance of education in her future but she did not come up to the point of failing any subjects. She is an average high school type of girl.

She was known to be the quiet and shy person in class and many of her classmates thinks that she is a snobbish person. During 2^nd year high school, she decided to join Citizenship Advancement Training (C.A.T); this changed her to a new person and realized that socializing to others made her happy. She gain self confidence and make a lot of new friends. Laughing, playing, telling stories and jokes are most of the things that Rinalyn and her friends does. She actively joined in sports fest and won various sports award.

After completing her high school education, she enrolled at De La Salle – Canlubang taking up BS Business Administration major in Management. At first, she was thinking of taking up Computer Science but then she realized that it wasn’t meant for her and instead pursue taking up Management. After finishing her college degree, she wants to work in marketing or sales department and at the same time put up her own BUSINESS related to sports especially basketball which she really likes.

.HER DATAMIN.

Datamin is one of the offered at the De La Salle – Canlubang and mostly offered for those who are taking up Business Administration major in Management and profel or freelec for other students. Rinalyn thought that datamin is more likely programming in management application but as the discussion continuous, it is a combination of BUSIPOL, DB4MGT, INFOSYS and MARKET1. So far she ENJOYED the previous lesson and willing to learn from the professor Mr. Duremdes.

BE COMPETITIVE. TO SURVIVE

This blog is about the importance and use of Information Technology in the market nowadays. It is our second blog that will be submitted to our professor Mr. Ramon Duremdes in DATAMIN class offered at De La Salle – Canlubang.

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INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

According to Stephen Haag, Information Technology is any computer-based tool that people use to work with information and support the information and information-processing needs of an organization.

Today at the 21st century, it is where the technology evolution started and competitive advantage is on the go. Uniqueness is one of the bases in the market for the products or services to be patronize by the buyers. The new innovation should answer the problem of the buyer and whether it is affordable for them. A strong competitive competition are in the market and there is a strong rivalry competition among existing competitors especially if there are many substitutes product and new entrants. Businesses are everywhere in different industries. There are a lot of ways how to survive in that competition using Information Technology and your performance on executing the optimal strategies that fits to your business or rather situation with the help of Business Intelligence.

I.T Experience

As far as I can remember, elementary at Holy Infant Academy School was my first hands-on in the computer and all we do is doodling using the software that I forgot what is called. I really had fun during that time, all I do is draw that would satisfy me and I’m not thinking what else that computer can do for me or even to our society. As I grew up, lots of technology devices entered the market and there was a stiff competition. Many businesses started to grow and some did not survive.

When I reached high school, computers are widely used because of the Internet connection and ASP (Application Software Provider) patronizes by the customers. I was 3rd year high school when we had our first thesis for our Biotechnology subject, at that time our group conducted a survey to our campus regarding on our topic “Ingredients used in Shampoo/Soap" (something like that) and those gathered data were encoded in Microsoft Excel and collected data are used for analyzing to turn into knowledge data. Formulas are also formulated in Microsoft Excel to show the result that we needed. Some results like percentage and geographical status helped a lot in our decision making and in concluding for our thesis to answer the problem and in recommendation about the said thesis. I remember that when ever there is no computer available, our group compute manually or we use calculator using a long formula and it takes us about one session in the classroom just for calculation and there are a lot of errors too.

Using computer tools applications really helped our group to work in the easiest, fastest way and prone to errors.

According to Clayton Christensen, a Harvard Business School professor “Our behavior changes in a new context. It doesn’t transform from the old context. That’s a key way to visualize how new technology gets deployed in new markets.”

Yes it is, whenever there are new products or services and it reached the stability level in the market, customers tend to adapt to it. When there are evolutions in technologies, people will also evolve due to the changes to its environment. But buyers won’t patronize products or services that will make them turn into something negatively that they doesn't want to happen. New technology are introduced for the better.

Based on the book "Management Information Systems for the Information Age by Stephen Haag" that I read, one of the successful companies is Talbott Necktie Manufacturing Company; they used (CAD) Computer Aided Design System to increase their Value-Added in their Value Chain. Using the CAD system, the company was able to create new designs meeting the customer’s wants which also brings a good relationship to its buyers and this I.T helps the company to be back on track to the competition.


I.T in Government

The Philippine government used Business Intelligence in different division such as LTO (Land Transportation Office), BIR (Bureau of Internal Revenue), DOLE (Department of Labor and Employment), DOH (Department of Health), NBI (National Bureau of Investigation), DOJ (Department of Justice) and a lot more. BIR is one of the example that uses Information Technology.

BIR (Bureau of Internal Revenue) is responsible for collection of tax regarding individual and businesses and provide service to taxpayers that monitors financial laws with excellence performance and integrity that concerns the Philippine nation.

There was a downfall that results to a higher budget deficits and lower revenues in the Philippine government that BIR encounter before. Then the BIR decided to seek for help in order for them to recover and eliminate the entire unnecessary deficit and to come up with the optimal solution at their situation. After implementing SAS software, BIR experience the easiest and most effective system. The allegation in all the undeclared taxes, incorrect auditing and incorrect monitoring of taxes are all resolved. BIR are now very confident to serve and ready gain trust from the nation.

SAS also caters software that will determine the correct VAT (Value Added Tax) and income tax of corporate companies that are found out of not declaring their proper taxes. RELIEF system and Integrated Tax System databases are the software that BIR uses offered by SAS.

I.T IN GOVERNMENT CORPORATION

Philhealth (Philippine Health) is one of the government corporations here in our country that serves with whole-hearted attitude towards customers. The company makes sure that all the customers received the best service that they can offer.

As Philhealth expand its services, the used of I.T to survive in the competition. Database, software and other computer tools applications are used in tracking, encoding, retrieving and deleting collected information of customer. If there is no I.T, Philhealth might still produce bunch of papers and loads of works might be left undone with a lot of mistakes. The government also decided to make use of e-government that offers e-card so that their customer will be more accessible to Philhealth’s service. It is very important to use the appropriate I.T based on the situation and flow of process within the organization.

Those are just some of the examples of Information Technology used in the government. But other software available in the market still has its weaknesses that are hard to avoid. Hacking is one of the examples, like what is been reported in Russia and America, there are hackers in the banks that stole credit cards, deposited bank accounts and customer information. Banks are using software or computer tools applications with Internet connection for communication to be faster and easier but applying.

I learn that in most of the situation and industry, there is Information Technology available in the market that will surely help you in decision making. Information Technology can be reliable if there is integrity and security in the computer software or application. In most of the cases, I.T is in demand because it brings the businesses and organization to success and competitive advantage. Having the suitable application, right situation, right strategies, right execution and knowledge personnel in charge, there is a greater possibility of targeting your goals.