Television’s Missed Opportunity

There are many services out there to help us discover new forms of digital enterntainment. Music is clearly the leader in these services though. Why has television yet to make a serious play here? I know that there are services such as Hulu, and that you can buy television programming via services such as iTunes, but how many people really use these kinds of sevices to discover new television programming when the new fall lineup comes around?

While watching television last night, happened to accidentially see a promo for a new series on ABC, called “Flashforward:”

I say that I accidentially discovered this, because it just caught my eye while I was fast forwarding over it on the DVR.

These days, television is populated with reality TV programming of questionable quality. This is because many critically acclaimed shows are often canceled because; a) people are never aware of them, b) they are moved to new schedules, and people have no way of knowing that or c) people are increasingly using DVRs, and not seeing promos for shows that could be relevant to their interestes. What television is missing is an effective way of bringing these new shows and changes to existing ones to the eyes of their current and potential audiances. As master of the obvious, I’d like to point out that the networks are not using the Internet properly to connect with their audiences. Of course, they still can.

Just as an example, of how they can leverage Twitter (there are MANY other options of course), each network should:

• Have separate Twitter accounts for:
  • The entire network
  • Information on new shows
  • Changes to existing shows
  • Individual shows
  • Each character of the individual shows

• Each Twitter page should allow users to discover the Twitter pages/accounts of their favorite shows, that show’s characters, and teh actual actors if they should have their own accounts

If this simple strategy were in place, imagine how immersed you could become in a show. Some shows, like Lost, have been able to harness the power of the Internet at creating immersion in their programming. But, it doesn’t have to be as complicated as the alternate reality games (ARGs) used by Lost. There’s a world of possibilities to extend the progrmming beyond the television, and for the networks to save themselves from become wastelands of reality television programming. The question is, why aren’t they doing it, and if they start, will they be able to keep it up in a consistent manner where the online immersion is an integral part of the viewing experience?

Omniture SiteCatalyst Plug-ins

Omniture SiteCatalyst is without a doubt one of the best Web analytics solutions out there. However, like all analytics solutions it be can difficult to implement when you are not a dedicated programmer or you do not have the available programming resources at your disposal. Many times Web analytics and other people that are responsible for the Web analytics function within a company will also not have access to server-side code to implement better page names and to set events and variables when you need to in certain circumstances. And this is where the Omniture SiteCatalyst plug-ins enter the equation.

The primary advantage of the SiteCatalyst plug-ins is that they allow you to implement SiteCatalyst and its more advanced features without the need to touch the server-side code. It should be noted thought that editing server-side code to pass dynamic data to SiteCatalyst is almost always the preferred avenue if it is available to you. That being said, Omniture has created many plug-ins that allow data to be sent to SiteCatalyst so that you can implement by only touching your basic “s_code.js” file that is a part of the implementation. Some of the more useful plug-ins (my opinion of course) include:

• Append List (s.apl)
  • This function is one of the most useful and versatile for someone without easy access to source code. As an example of how this function might be used, assume that you have a registration confirmation page that needs a success event fired. By using the “s.apl” function, you can write some very simple JavaScript that will detect the Omniture page name and if it is a match, this plug-in will fire your success event. All being coded from directly within the Omniture JavaScript file.
• Link Handler (there are 3 of these)
  • There are three flavors of the link handler plug-in. One controls clicks on regular links, another controls exit links and the last controls download links. The “s.downloadLinkHandler” plug-in is especially helpful if you want to track all of the PDFs on your site by setting a specific custom event for only clicks on PDFs, while at the same time sending the URL of the PDF into a commerce variable (a.k.a. an eVar). By using these three plug-ins, you can easily begin tracking the clicks of select links on your site.
• New vs. Repeat Visitors (s.getNewRepeat)
  • The name of this plug-in says it all. By using this one, you will be able to segment all of your visitors and their interactions with your site into behavioral groups for new and return visitors. Very useful when the Omniture prop and/or eVar is correlated or fully subrelated, respectively.
• Query Parameter (s.getQueryParam)
  • This might be the most basic plug-in, and is a part of almost every Omniture SiteCatalyst implementation that I’ve ever seen. While simple, it is extremely useful. Using this plugin, you can capture the value of any query string parameter and send that value to an eVar or prop. When you couple this plug-in with one like “s.apl” you have an easy way to capture your internal search phrases while at the same time setting a custom success event for internal searches.

These are but a few of the many plug-ins offered by Omniture. There are also more advanced ones such as:

• Channel Manager (advanced tracking of your campaign data)
• Cross Visit Participation (provides an understanding of campaign impact across visits)
• Form Analysis (enables reporting on form errors, abandonment, etc.)

This last few are more difficult to implement in most cases, and you might consider contacting a consultant here.

The plug-ins are one of the most useful features of a SiteCatalyst implementation but are often overlooked. I think that a session on a few of the more advanced plug-ins would be an excellent idea for an Omniture Summit session, don’t you?