Local web strategic agency Clickthinking have won an internationally respected web competition, beating numerous global usability and site performance companies to take top spot.

The US-based Web Analytics Association (WAA) is seen as the global champion for the online marketing analytics profession. The association believes online marketing analytics is an integral part of the business decision process. Corporate members include Google, Yahoo!, Core Metrics, Web Trends, Walt Disney and Omniture.

The WAA announced the winners of the Web Analytics Championship on Monday July 14 2008. The competition was aimed at web analysts reviewing the site and traffic data for webanalyticsassociation.org. The judges wanted to see how companies extracted value from web data.

“It is tough to make web analytics cool and the team at Clickthinking managed that. Theirs was the most engaging and creative report in the championship,” the judges said in a statement. “They confronted tough problems head-on with data.”

The judges also said Clickthinking had a great framing of the problems (with the business objectives), clear original plan of analysis (including using multiple data sources), and adapted to adversity (missing data sources). Clickthinking also made clear connections between recommendations made and data reviewed. They also got bonus points for conveying complex recommendations in lay terms so any marketer would be able to understand them and not getting mired in technical recommendations and reviews.

Clickthinking was praised for the way in which they focused on solving the critical few important problems of the site.

Clickthinking Managing Director Peter Stewart said the award was a result of hard work by a team of individuals who are fast becoming the leaders in their respective fields. “We are very proud of this achievement, having competed with some of the very best globally”.

Other winners were Predicta (Sao Paulo) in second place, Alt64 (Barcelona) in third, User Intelligence (Amsterdam) in fourth and Targetbase (Dallas) in fifth place. The judges were Avinash Kaushik, Neil Mason and June Dershewitz.

After 6 great years, Iain Duncan is finally leaving Clickthinking. Iain worked on a number of big accounts including  adidas, Supersport, PSL, Cape Union Mart & Rani Resorts to name a few. Iain has an excellent understanding of the web environment and interpreting customers requirements.  Clickthinking has always placed a high emphasis on functional design and  we enjoyed Iain’s energy and input.

We wish Iain and his wife Nicki all the best in Japan

In 2004, about 40% of people visited a homepage and then drilled down to where they wanted to go and 60% use a deep link that took them directly to a page or destination inside a site. In 2008, said Dr Nielsen, only 25% of people travel via a homepage. The rest search and get straight there.

“Basically search engines rule the web,” he said.But, he added, this did not mean that the search engines were doing a perfect job.
“When you watch people search we often find that people fail and do not get the results they were looking for,” he said.
“In the long run anyone who wants to beat Google just has to make a better search,” said Dr Nielsen.

Some of the comments below the article do raise the question of the relevance of the comparison. What is clear is that both products are highly profitable!

Read the full article here: Google Search To Surpass Size of Microsoft

Popular East Coast Radio DJ Just Plain Darren’s sports blog on the stations website was voted in as 1st runner up in the Sports Category, followed by www.iamastormer.com. Votes were open to the public over a two week period in March, with 70% of the audience votes affecting the end result (a panel of judges made up the other 30%). The best of the rest in the sports category were rugbydump.blogspot.com; africansurfer.com; sportblogs.24.com/frg; sarugbyblog.com; pakiscorner.com; sportblogs.24.com/ghana2008, with compleatgolfer.co.za coming in at the bottom of the log. www.iamastormer.com was the only rugby franchise up for nomination.

The site was launched in 2007 as part of the I AM A STORMER marketing campaign.

The main purpose of the campaign is to reinforce the spirit and support that the Stormers have enjoyed since the brands inception in 1998. Concept wise, rich or poor, famous or unknown, young or old – we are all Stormers. Our athletes are of course Stormers too, and the campaign recognises that the Vodacom Stormers are because of the thousands they walk amongst.

Building on this concept, www.iamastormer.com was launched as a blog in February 2007, allowing supporters to share their views on players and team tactics with other Vodacom Stormers’ fans around the world.

The site isn’t merely a comment portal, it is THE home for Vodacom Stormers fans, no matter where in the world they find themselves.

Thanks to your passionate and loyal support that drives this site, it is now up for nomination for BEST SPORTS BLOG in the 2008 SA Blog Awards.

Be proud to claim your allegiance to the Vodacom Stormers, and vote by visiting http://www.sablogawards.com/2008/

Scroll down to BEST SPORTS BLOG and vote iamastormer.com. Submit your vote by completing your email address in the space provided at the bottom of the page. Voting closes on 19 March

1. iphone
2. badoo
3. facebook
4. dailymotion
5. webkinz
6. youtube
7. ebuddy
8. second life
9. hi5
10. club penguin

To quote Google: ” No matter how much changed throughout the course of the year, we found time to ponder a few age-old questions. The open-ended nature of many of these questions reminds us that sometimes it’s about the search — not the conclusion.”

Here are the Top 10 “How to” searches:

1. how to kiss
2. how to draw
3. how to knit
4. how to hack
5. how to dance
6. how to crochet
7. how to meditate
8. how to flirt
9. how to levitate
10. how to skateboard

From a girl’s perspective its refreshing to see kissing is still more popular than skateboarding
Wishing you all a fantastic 2008!