How do you define new media? 

Q: What were the objectives for these rich media applications / programs? The one's I measured on the homepage of IBM involved engagement and branding.  Typically, you can't really talk to engagement if you don't have audience measurement...typically that's in the form of survey data but it can also be made up of profiling information from services like Nielson, Comscore, Hitwise, Compete and now Quantcast.

Q: How do you measure the impact of each of these media types? Podcasts and vidcasts = number of downloads (bandwidth/size)

Q: How do integrate these KPIs with your existing site metrics? Not well, you can measure downloads and time spent on page, number of pageviews, visits, uniques, location, and that's about it.  That’s been one of my biggest frustrations – that measurements of reach, frequency, retention are not measured in any direct way within Web Analytics.

 Q: You mentioned higher tier analytics – could you describe some of the elements of those tools? What I found is that higher tier metrics means people have the means to talk directly with data.  We’ve reached a level of web analytics where the more data you have the more questions you have. 

 Q: In the new media programs you’ve been involved with, were there any implementation hurdles to overcome? Flash and Ajax Tracking are very difficult to do – the analytics can measure it but the work involved in aligning the creation and management of new media makes it too difficult for most companies to do.

Q: Do you measure consumer generated media / or "buzz" about your brand? Most of my clients don't yet have the tools to do this effectively but you can do it in a very limited way via BlogPulse, Google trends and Google alerts.

Q: As these advancements take place, What future applications or media such as virtual worlds are you considering? IBM is doing a lot of work with Second Life, including putting virtual replicas of all their Research Labs in Second Life and collaborating with companies like Sears to create virtual online stores which feature the same products that you can go to Sears and buy – and I’ve written about that in Webmetricsguru.com.

Q: You’ve given us a lot of great information to consider Marshall. Do you have any other final thoughts or recommendations for the audience about measuring new media programs? You need to borrow a page from Avinash Kaushik and really plan for measurement when you conceive and roll out these new media programs.  You need to build metrics into the process, not put it on at the end.