Archive for sap.com

Website Rankings: Hits, misses & a little bit more

By Marty Gruhn · Comments (2)
Wednesday, July 7th, 2010

There are plenty of hits and misses on this year’s roster. My favorites are . . .

In my last post, I shared some info about the top five Websites on the siteIQ eBusiness Index. Here’s my interesting surprises and “oops” list:

Symantec.com’s usability ranks second, and the site misses a “Good Practice” rating by a hair.

Juniper.net and Oracle.com complete the usability top five. Of the two, Juniper.net is most likely to move up a slot and knock CA.com off its perch.

Intel.com aced the online recruiting category and is the only four star (the best) in this category. (OK, so most recruiting zones are a big snooze – but we have to give Intel.com chops for its four star performance).

Services marketing continues to be Nortel.com’s claim to fame; HP.com and IBM.com are still second tier contenders.

Juniper.net hits the high note in the communities category – but Cisco.com and Intel.com also operate four star (the best) communities. (This is another way of saying that the new guys are zipping past community pioneers).

If call to action is your bag, look no further than Cisco.com. It is the only call to action “Best Practice” site on the eBusiness Index.

Newegg.com’s e-commerce capabilities puts it with the big boys: Dell.com & HP.com. Newegg ranks third with four stars (the best) and a “Good Practice” nod.

A couple of new entrants on the 2010 eBusiness Index roster did better than expected.

  • Brocade.com and EMC.com rank 7th and 8th on the usability chart – and finish in the middle of the pack when all of the scores are tallied up (EMC.com ranks 12th; Brocade ranks 14th).
  • Among the sites that debuted on the Index in 2010, Deloitte.com and SAS.com turned out to be boat anchors. Deloitte finished dead last – and SAS.com debuted in 17th place (out of 23 Websites).

Related research: The eBusiness Index Report.  If you are a siteIQ client or subscriber, click here.

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What we learned while lurking on leading communities

By Marty Gruhn · Comments (1)
Friday, July 24th, 2009

Although evaluating 10 leading IT communities based on 490 criteria was a bit of a slog (and pencils out to looking for and scoring 4,900 types of content, features and capabilities, plus another 320 usability metrics), we did have some fun during the process.  While Kenna did the deep diving wearing her “power user” hat, I took a tour through every community with my “lurker beanie” on. The point of the exercise was to see how these communities look to visitors who are looking around to see if they want to join the party versus what’s actually delivered once you’ve married into the family.

It was a bit of a lark, to be sure. And like many of our larks, it delivered some interesting results.

lurker2To see why, take a peek at this graph that illustrates how the communities operated by seven leading IT companies fare based on 32 usability metrics.

First, the good news. SAP and Citrix deliver pretty much what is expected. The bad news for Citrix is that, at a 54% usability score, its community doesn’t look very usable – and it isn’t. At the other end of the spectrum, SAP’s communities appear to be the most usable – and (dismal look and feel aside) they are.

Next, let’s look at the sites that exceeded expectations. That would be Dell. My tour of the community delivered Dell an average 69.1% usability score. At 70.8%, Kenna’s power drive says that Dell’s communities actually deliver slightly more than expected.

This leaves us with the communities that are like an unfortunate blind date. Among these, EMC and Oracle fared worst.

My tour of EMC’s communities delivered good, but not great, usability results (62.4%), but Kenna’s deep dive shows that once you get past the flash, this community is almost unusable.

Oracle also seemed to be a reasonably usable venue if you are just lurking around, and my usability scores averaged out to 60.8%. By the time Kenna finished rambling through the site’s inconsistent behaviors and technical problems, she thought 54% was a gift.

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Categories : Communities, Design, POV (point of view), Web 2.0, Website Rankings
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Global Websites | The good, the bad and the (really) ugly

By Marty Gruhn · Comments (1)
Monday, January 12th, 2009

We recently put the finishing touches on our research project to identify how effectively leading IT companies address language requirements on 700+ global Websites operating in 232 countries around the globe. The companies under our microscope include the Who’s Who in enterprise systems (IBM, HP, Dell and Sun), enterprise software (SAP and Oracle), and the networking industry (Cisco and Nortel Networks). Quite frankly, we would have loved to add other major players, such as Microsoft, CA, Symantec, Adobe and others, but at 700 Websites we had our hands full.

The good news is that everyone can learn from the steps and mis-steps of these leading IT vendors.

siteIQ clients have access to our study results in a new siteIQ SnapShot report, Global Websites | Key Metrics | Language Compliance. For those who don’t have access to the siteIntelligence Research Center, I thought I’d share some of the more interesting things we learned.

The Big Picture

The IT industry has come a long way since we last looked at the global landscape in 2005. Then, language compliance in key markets, such as Latin America and Asia Pacific, were hit and miss at best. Today, these regions stand out as having some of the strongest language compliant Websites. Among the companies studied, Dell’s Latin American regional sites are the venues to watch.

In a reprise of our 2005 results, Oracle retains the crown as the worst global language performer.

languagebyregion09On the other end of the spectrum, the emerging market du jour – Eastern Europe – is a language compliance disaster. Here, companies are following a number of less-than-effective strategies.

Those that deliver sites in Russian appear to be unaware that this language is spoken in less than half of the 29 countries in this region. Others, like Oracle, fall back on English-based Websites in a region where English is not a first, second or an official language. None of the companies we studied “get it”, but if you want to see the best of a bad lot, spend some time observing Eastern European sites operated by IBM.

Read More→

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Why Web 2.0 is like botox

By Marty Gruhn · Comments (0)
Tuesday, December 18th, 2007

Web 2.0 is alot like Botox. Expertly applied with pinpoint precision, Web 2.0 can smooth out a Website’s wrinkles and create a better (even great) look and feel.  Slather it on willy-nilly, however, and you’ll end up with gridlock – and a very, very ugly result

I’m at a conference that is a brain trust for Web 2.0 and its ramifications inside corporations – and for public .com Websites.  Ajax, wikis, gadgets, widgets, logs, podcasts and long tails whiz by as speakers extol the virtues and opportunities that Web 2.0 will create.

I’m reminded of the mania surrounding the dotcom era. This is more restrained – a bit more focused – but I still hear the strains of ‘it’s a brave new world’ in the background.

Don’t get me wrong. Web 2.0 is going to change – even revolutionize — how IT sites communicate with visitors and customers. That said, a word of caution is also in order. Web 2.0 is alot like Botox. Expertly applied with pinpoint precision, Web 2.0 can smooth out a Website’s wrinkles and create a better (even great) look and feel.  Slather it on willy-nilly, however, and you’ll end up with gridlock – and a very, very ugly result.

At this point, it seems that the IT Web is dividing in to two Web 2.0 camps: those that intend to be early adopters – and those that are piddling around to very little effect. Of the first set, Cisco.com, Sun.com and IBM.com stand out as early adopters. Of these, Cisco.com is currently the site to watch.

So what should you pay attention to as you navigate the Web 2.0 waters?  Here’s a couple of thoughts: Read More→

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Online communities | What Web are these folks looking at?

By Marty Gruhn · Comments (0)
Wednesday, May 23rd, 2007

Oracle.com doesn’t bother with sorting by company size; on Oracle.com it’s every company for himself

I was in a meeting the other day with a client providing a readout of their most recent siteIQ results. Our diagnostics analysis was around the site’s community marketing effectiveness—and the conversation turned to the  problems that crop up when a company doesn’t clearly identify how it defines small business vs. medium-sized businesses on the site. I was astonished when I receive push back on this notion and a suggestion that small business and medium business definitions were pretty much standard across IT companies on the Web.

What Web are these folks looking at?

If you cruise around the IT Web, the one thing that is obvious is that there are few standards, and even fewer IT vendors identify who fits in what bucket. Just for giggles, consider this: Read More→

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Categories : Communities, Marketing
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