Your Performance Is Your Site

February 13, 2001

Perhaps the most clamorous theme to emerge from our research is one heard again and again in relation to Web sites: Performance matters -- a lot. Performance applies not just to the raw speed of site downloads but to applications as well. On that front, search engines were among those brutalized last year for what can best be described as delivering underwhelming results.

That will change, however, as companies push the underlying search technology forward, ensuring that queries are answered with a much higher degree of precision. For one, Google's highly acclaimed Page Rank technology is showing up in more places, delivering results that are much more in line with actual queries. And Alta Vista is breaking new ground with its linguistic-processing technique.

Personalization also has been a disappointing technology. Critics have noted that neither rules-based engines nor collaborative filtering has been as effective as promised. As you'll see in our list, however, new combinations of the two are being served up through partnerships or product integration. NetPerceptions, for example, whose collaborative filtering products power much of Amazon.com's personalization efforts, is working with the Art Technology Group, BroadVision, and others to give businesses an opportunity to deliver much richer recommendations to customers.

And then there's the how-fast-it-loads side of performance. Begin here by choosing one platform for hardware, operating systems, and databases. You'll find the market leaders and their flagship products in each of those categories covered here.

More effective site monitoring is another tried and true method for improving performance. And thanks to the emergence of content-delivery services, such as those from Akamai and Digital Island, you can geographically spread out the pokey portions of your site, letting the massive distribution networks that each of these providers boasts do the work for you.

As for adding or enhancing e-commerce components, more options than ever are now available. Companies like newcomer Blue Martini and veteran IBM have added sophisticated features such as real-time, available-to-promise inventory that can improve everything from marketing efforts to inventory management.

And where there's commerce, there are customers. From an operational standpoint, that means a CRM system, preferably Web-based, that can tie in with existing systems. The forward-looking companies in this space, including E.piphany and Siebel Systems, have already begun -- and in some cases completed -- the hard work of integrating software to support e-mail, call-center, and chat-based customer interactions.

Alongside the traditional Web site analysis companies, a new breed of company, concerned exclusively with plumbing the depths of customer behavior, has surfaced. Though some in our table are focused solely on clickstream data, the new application push, as evidenced by Quadstone's product line, will be defined by the marriage of online and off-line customer data.

As for content breakthroughs, now may be the time to investigate ways to deliver online audio and video, even if you're not quite ready to take the plunge. For those companies that want to take advantage of existing video libraries, options from RealNetworks, Virage, and others are now available. In addition, both wireless and voice-technology services are beginning to bloom. Companies like Informio, VocalPoint, and Voicemate are trying to streamline the process of adding voice interactivity to Web sites. Many analysts have identified voice as an important technology for the next wave of user friendliness.

And through it all, outsourcing continues to grow in both breadth and depth. As many as 70 percent of the companies on our list offer an outsourced or hosted variant of their applications. And, of course, those that belong purely to the realm of outsourcing, including Exodus Communications, Loudcloud, and NaviSite, are well represented. But outsourcing has clearly changed: The old space-and-box-rental approach has been dropped in favor of a much richer array of services that includes management, performance, and platforms.

It's no secret that Web technology is a moving target. But the companies included on our Internet Business 100 list can at least provide solutions, as the rules change, and ensure that your site doesn't be-come the media's latest idea of a dot-com disaster.