Derek Vaughan, reporting for Webanalyticsbook.com recently interviewed Vik Chaudhary, Vice President of Product Management and Corporate Development at Keynote Systems to determine what this successful analytics company has been up to lately in website and mobile analytics.
Derek Vaughan: What are the core strengths of Keynote as a company?
Vik Chaudhary: Keynote Systems’ core strength is offering a full suite of mobile and Internet test and measurement products and services that enable connected companies to know precisely how their Web sites, content and applications will perform on actual browsers, networks and mobile devices. These products and services tap into the Keynote Global Test and Measurement Network of computers and mobile devices - the largest and most accurate real time measurement, monitoring and testing infrastructure in the world, which is comprised of more than 2,500 measurement computers and mobile devices in more than 240 locations and 160 metropolitan areas around the world. The Keynote On-Demand Test and Measurement Network gives you a true portrayal of what actual users are experiencing on their end of a Web browser or mobile device. Keynote helps its customers measure/monitor/manage/test/
Design and Development
• Test solutions before deployment
• Measure how online applications and content perform across various devices and infrastructures
Deployment and Operations
• Real time site monitoring
• Model real user behavior and test site load
Diagnosis and Support
• Pinpoint end user issues
• Resolve performance issues quickly when they do occur
Competitive Research
• Gain actionable end user feedback by performing behavioral and attitudinal analysis, real world user testing, online surveys and competitive and market intelligence studies
• Measure and compare performance against competitive strengths and weaknesses
• Measure customer satisfaction through regular monitoring
Derek: Specifically looking at products that are designed to look at website metrics: What are the current top products at Keynote? What makes them so popular?
Vik:
The most popular products are our Web site performance test and measurement products (Transaction Perspective® and Application Perspective®) and our mobile test and measurement products (Mobile Application Perspective® and Mobile Device Perspective).
Transaction Perspective and Application Perspective generate sample traffic – in the form of typical business transactions, usually made up of a sequence of page ‘click throughs’ - to a company’s web site from locations all over the world to monitor site performance 24/7 and to help quickly diagnose performance problems at the application, transaction and infrastructure levels in real time.
Keynote’s mobile products allows companies to interactively test, measure and monitor your mobile Web site in two ways:
1. Mobile Application Perspective (MAP): This service utilizes geographically distributed ‘device profile libraries’ that have the ability to simulate feature/functionality sets of over 1,600 different mobile devices.
2. Mobile Device Perspective (MDP): This service allows for the remote control of actual mobile devices that are geographically distributed around the world in the same way that Keynote’s measurement computers are deployed for the testing and monitoring of traditional Web sites.
For both MAP and MDP: performance tests can be done on an on demand basis and scheduled for ongoing mobile site monitoring.
The products we’re seeing much new interest around right now are our on demand desktop testing tools KITE (Keynote Internet Testing Environment) and MITE (Mobile Interactive Testing Environment).
There are a few factors aside from being superior test and measurement products I think are driving their growth. A huge factor is the ease of engagement; anyone can download these products directly to their desktop from our Web site – no contracts, no in-depth configurations. Also, these products are priced right – KITE is actually free – so an individual developer or smaller shops can enjoy the insights and advantages that were previously only affordable to large companies. MITE is priced very cost-effectively and in the near term a free version will become available and also be downloadable from Keynote’s Web site.
With so much content for the Web now being created by individual enthusiasts and smaller companies, these products are leveling the playing field, allowing anyone to deploy an offering with a superior end user experience.
Derek: What makes the Keynote products better than any comparable competitive products?
Vik: Our major differentiator is the depth and breadth of our measurement network – our competitors cannot match our over 2,500 measurement computers and mobile devices in more than 240 locations in 160 metropolitan areas around the world.
Looking specifically at mobile test and measurement, we also have the ability to measure the content quality and application performance, using both real handsets and the largest collection of 1600 emulated handsets; no one else in the space offers that capability.
Editor’s Note: This concludes Part I of Vik Chaudhary’s interview. In Part II Vik speaks to new products and mobile analytics at Keynote in particular. Look for Part II soon.
Derek Vaughan is a guestblogger here at Webanalyticsbook.com. He is one of the few experts in the website hosting field and currently consults 34SP.com. If you want to be a guest blogger contact us.
