Working for the company I do affords me a rather interesting luxury. That is a broad perspective which encompasses many segments of the automotive industry. Because of the unique nature of the data we collect, many different types of firms within the auto industry engage our services and each from their own perspective and singular [...]

  Watching 20 million auto shoppers shop for cars across the Internet every day, often yields surprising, informative and sometimes entertaining information. Like watching someone shop for six hours straight on numerous websites and research 16 different cars. Who has the fortitude? Or watching someone shop for days for a Ford F-150 and then suddenly [...]

Since August of last year our firm has been tracking the impact of gas price changes on automotive shopper behavior. We’ve tracked the online auto inventory searches of over 12 million consumers.  Our journey along the highway of rising gas prices begins last August… On August 9th 2010 gas prices reached a high of $2.74 [...]

Many people use single website analytics tools provided by Google Analytics or perhaps their website provider. Both these options provide solid data but do little to provide context. That is, if you’re trying to measure up, how do you know which way is up? One of the inherit risks with any analytics is the risk [...]

So everywhere you turn today data is being reported, analyzed, and hailed as the next big thing. Whether it’s IBM’s smart planet campaign, Google analytics, or even our own products there is value in the data….but how do you know the data is relevant, meaningful, or even accurate? Or even more importantly, of any use. [...]

Another area where website providers vary greatly is the underlying code base itself. Now I am not going to use this space to argue the pros and cons of the various programming languages such as PHP, ColdFusion, .NET and of course HTML. There really isn’t a correct answer and each has their own merits. Again, [...]

Beauty is skin deep or so its been said. How do you evaluate design? Is the underlining technology more important or the actual layout and creativity of the website? Probably the best example of the conflict between design and technology is the long standing argument around the use of flash technology. On one hand flash [...]

During a recent conversation with a GM of a top website provider, he stated that dealership websites had largely become commoditized. That there was little difference between one website provider’s website and the other. And I must admit a few years back when I was a GM of website provider myself, I would have agreed. [...]