QW2002 Paper 6I2 Dr. Chris Overton (Keynote Systems, Inc.) Comparative Strategies for Measuring the Internet: The Whole is More than the Sum of the P

Key Points

• Here’s how to make commercial implications of Web Performance directly tangible
• Integration of measurement modalities is tricky but highly rewarding
• Blind sports and complementarities of the measurement modalities

Presentation Abstract

One may classify commercially feasible measurements of Internet performance into three broad categories, which may be placed along a continuum: behind-the-firewall, synthetic, and end-user. As representatives of industry leaders in these measurements approaches, we set out to compare benefits and blind spots of the approaches and to see how they complement each other. THIS IS NOT A MARKETING TALK, but rather an in-depth, balanced discussion of success stories and open questions, both from technical and business perspectives. We work our way up from statistical prerequisites to a surprising ability to correlate traditional technical data (such as downtime, other performance problems, and design issues) with traditional Marketing metrics (such as ROI estimates.) We use an interactive bird’s-eye view of multiple data sources that allows an unaccustomed ability to spot relationships. Understanding the full spectrum of measurement integrations will also help prioritize within less ambitious performance management strategies. In addition, this clarifies desired future progress.

About the Author

Chris Overton is Keynote Statistician & Quantitative Architect. Over the last decade, he has consulted as a statistician in industry and in academic biomedicine, as a software architect and developer, and in business model development. He founded Crazy Tulip Corp. to build knowledge modeling software systems. His responsibilities at Keynote include algorithm and tool design, data analysis & interpretation, internal & external education, and serving as academic liaison. He architected Keynote’s SLA reporting engine and has helped several large companies build SLAs both on the provider side and on the customer side. Chris is the principal architect of Keynote’s streaming media metrics and has published and lectured on related topics. He got his pure math PhD from Stanford in 1996 and has taught there and at the University of San Francisco.

Chris Bubinas is webHancer's lead Performance Assessment and Customer Impact Analyst. For over four years he has consulted in network deployment and in bringing companies? business operations to the Net. He joined webHancer near inception, sharing the vision that online businesses require and deserve a better understanding of the Web performance their customers experience. His contributions to webHancer involve data mining and analysis, building strategies to measure performance impact on audience behavior, and custom performance measurement projects with some of the Internet's largest players. Mr Bubinas resides in Ottawa, Canada from where he avidly launches the sounds of his cyber-industrial musical projects into cyberspace.

James W. MacIntyre, IV is cofounder and chief executive officer of Visual Sciences, Inc., which offers industry-leading visualization and interactivity for several data domains, especially for various types of Internet measurements. He is a member of the General Partner at NextPoint Partners, L.P., a seed and early-stage venture capital fund. A serial entrepreneur, Mr. Maclntyre also served as cofounder, chief executive officer, or general manager of a number of companies, including OneSoft Corporation, an e-commerce and managed services company; TGF Technologies, Inc., a software development company; Together Networks, a regional Internet service provider; Computer and Communications International, a Venezuelan Internet infrastructure company, and Comprehensive Data Systems, a software applications company. Mr. Maclntyre holds a B.A. in philosophy and economics from the University of Vermont.