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In a world when you can buy/see/experience almost anything online, a new industry has taken to the web in a big way. The nation’s major pizza restaurants are introducing online ordering, high tech websites, and even tracking tools for the next generation of customers. Papa John’s, Pizza Hut, and Domino’s are all using the web to give their customers alternatives to traditional in-restaurant and phone ordering.

Papa John’s, a Louisville, KY based franchise restaurant, has raked in $1 billion dollars in online orders since introducing the option seven years ago. As Vice President of Marketing Communications Jim Ensign told CNN, “It took us seven years to reach our first billion in online sales, and at our current pace and growth rate it will take us less than three years to hit our next billion.” Their website allows customers to access a comprehensive menu, complete with photos and web specials. The user interface leaves a little to be desired, though, and it looks as though it would not easily transfer to mobile devices. They do, however, take orders by text message, a trend likely to expand to their competitors.

Domino’s Pizza, on the other hand, has already created a site specifically for mobile users, enabling customers to order online from phones or computers. Domino’s has also introduced a tracking option on their website, and customers anxiously awaiting their pizzas can see when it goes in the oven, when it’s finished cooking, and when it leaves with the delivery van. The system was launched in January, and they recently rewarded the 1 millionth user with a $1000 gift certificate. As CIO Chris McGlothlin says in a press release, “Customers using Pizza Tracker will no longer have to wonder where their pizza is in the ordering process - it takes the ‘mystery’ out of waiting for their pizza. Not only that, it’s entertaining, too.”

Pizza Hut, as the largest of the pizza restaurant chains, has also taken steps to give “wired” customers the options they need to order online. They take orders online and through mobile messaging, and they plan to expand with the “Pizza Hut Shortcut” next year. This widget would enable ordering through a small desktop application, and customers could keep their favorite toppings combinations on “one-click” settings. This feature is also available to customers who have an online account, which the company called a “Pizza Playlist”.

Pizza Hut also recently introduced a “virtual waiter” to recommend toppings, side dishes, and extras based on your past orders. A recent press release explains: “We have a very savvy customer base when it comes to the Internet, so we want to make sure we’re constantly innovating online,” said Bernard Acoca, director of digital marketing for Pizza Hut. “At the same time, we want to make sure we’re not just creating a bunch of virtual bells and whistles for the sake of innovation; all the upgrades we make to pizzahut.com enhance the customer’s ordering experience in a meaningful way.”

All of these pizza restaurants are recognizing the value of the web when it comes to pleasing today’s tech savvy diners. Pizza is a traditional American comfort food, though the way we order it is anything but traditional. These brands are reaching out to a user base who expects the convenience of ordering online or with their mobile phones, and their strategy is likely to pay off. The web is becoming a bigger and bigger part of our everyday lives, and it makes perfect sense for our delivery pizza to go the way of Web 2.0.

RSS feeds are becoming more and more popular, and businesses and individuals alike are using them to communicate with customers, vendors, journalists, friends, and family. Some industry watchers are predicting that RSS has the potential to replace email, and marketers are taking note of their popularity and power. In their current form, feeds are not personalized enough to eclipse email as a communication method, but with the right tweaking and features, they could be a powerful new tool for both businesses and casual users.

RSS, which stands for “Really Simple Syndication”, “Rich Site Summary”, or “RDF Site Summary” depending on who you ask, is essentially a self-updating content subscription. They are based on blogging tools that authors can use to post new stories, updates, and information. Avid readers can add a simple application (sometimes on the desktop, sometimes in the browser) which lists new content and keeps them up to date. RSS feeds are very commonly used on blogs, news websites, and podcasts. They are usually denoted by a small orange icon featuring a “sound wave” graphic.

Marketing groups are starting to use RSS technology also as an alternative to mass emails that serve to annoy and inconvenience even the most dedicated of customers. At this point, sources estimate that just 20% of internet users employ RSS feeds on a regular basis, but these numbers are expected to increase as the technology becomes more familiar. While it may not have as wide a reach for personal notes and messages, RSS has definite potential to change the way businesses communicate with customers. As a recent SiteProNews article suggests, “In the same way email eclipsed snail mail for content delivery, RSS will eclipse email as the consumer’s choice for opt-in messaging.”

One of the reasons RSS is so promising is that it actually reaches people who care. Even if you sign up for an email newsletter or HTML-based special offers flyer, the likelihood of it actually reaching your inbox shockingly 60% or less. RSS, on the other hand, does away with spam filters and allows users to check updates at their own convenience, ensuring that 100% of subscribers will get the message.

Another reason why marketers are turning to RSS is due to the rise of internet video. With sites like YouTube and Hulu topping the traffic charts, advertisers are turning to video as a way of grabbing users’ attention. Email, however, is a very complicated way to deliver a video message; even HTML emails are not a sure bet depending on subscribers’ clients and settings. Videos get stripped by email providers, and there’s no guarantee they’ll play within the message consistently, which is how users will expect it to work. RSS, however, was built to easily embed video and audio, just like a blog, and users don’t have inconsistent access to the message.

As RSS gains more users, businesses are seeing a unique opportunity to target their marketing efforts at their best customers. RSS provides a pain-free, consistent way to reach users who actually want to hear from them. It eliminates many of the inconsistencies and headaches of email marketing efforts, while still providing the wide reach that email creates. The potential upsides are enormous, and as the technology improves to allow for private messages and personalized content, RSS could well become the method of choice for online communication.

Hot on the heels of Yahoo!’s better-than-expected earnings report, the search company has revealed new plans that will change their social networking strategy. Instead of continuing to pursue Yahoo! 360° as a social networking spot, Yahoo! will open its platforms to external developers, allowing users to unify their various services and choose from third-party applications to create complete profiles. This will give Yahoo! users just one location for all their functions, including email, calendars, news, photo storage, and instant messaging. With Microsoft’s takeover offer looming, this strategy may help Yahoo! redefine their services for the new generation of internet users.

PC World has reported this development from the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco Thursday, where Ari Balogh, Yahoo’s chief technology officer gave a keynote address. Balogh said, “”It is rewiring Yahoo from the inside out, across all of our properties, to fundamentally open up those Web services and provide a consistent development model, a consistent deployment and consumer experience as well.” If all goes well, the strategy has the potential to unite hundreds of millions of people who use Yahoo!’s email and messaging services in a social setting. It could potentially give Yahoo! the boost they need to compete with social networking giants like MySpace and Facebook, both of which are open to outside developers creating applications for use within their sites.

Yahoo!’s APIs (application programming interfaces) have been available to developers on a limited basis in the past, but this move is much more broad, and will hopefully create a streamlined process like that provided to third-party Facebook developers. With Yahoo!’s recent acquisitions of Flickr (photo sharing site), Del.icio.us (social bookmarking site), and Upcoming (calendar sharing site), the combination of services into a single dashboard could be quite appealing to users. Third-party applications could include anything from games, blogging tools, file sharing, and a variety of other popular social networking tools. As Balogh said in his address, “We are not building another social network. We are building social into everything we do.”

The first piece of Yahoo!’s puzzle that will be opened up to developers is Search Monkey, which will give outsiders a look at their search technology. Users and developers will be able to customize and tweak search results, as well as applying SEO techniques to bump them up in Yahoo!’s rankings. A senior researcher at Forrester told the BBC, “My hat goes off to Yahoo that they have been able to execute this in a very difficult and stressful time for them on a strategy that I think is potentially very interesting.” Indeed, with Microsoft’s deadline for their takeover offer looming, Yahoo! has shown no signs of slowing their progress.

Their earnings report released earlier this week shows a 9 percent increase in revenues and an 11 percent increase in profits over last year’s first quarter. Yahoo! executives no doubt hoped this news would solicit a higher offer from Microsoft, but the software giant has not backed down. Tomorrow will be the deadline for Yahoo! to begin talks, and Microsoft has threatened to go hostile if an agreement is not reached. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has indicated that the offer may be taken directly to Yahoo! shareholders, bypassing the company’s management.

We all love an underdog, and many in the technology community are rooting for Yahoo!. The new social networking strategy will likely win them even more fans, and potentially give them the bargaining chip they’ve been looking for.

Scott Adams’ popular workplace comic strip, Dilbert, has undergone a Web 2.0 makeover. The new Dilbert.com hosts a blog, features flash displays of newly color strips, and invites readers to outwit Adams by creating their own punch lines for favorite strips. Some industry watchers are speculating that the Web 2.0 flavor is an attempt for the popular strip to survive the waning popularity of print media, but fans don’t seem to think this is necessary. Indeed, user comments on the beta site are very critical of the upgrade, despite the chance to participate in Dilbert’s anti-Utopian office culture.

Adams told technology blog Machinist that he’s always considered his readers to be active participants in his content decisions for Dilbert. “People e-mail me with ideas, I draw the comic, they hang the comic on a wall,” he says. This trend towards user-generated content is at the center of Web 2.0 culture, and it makes sense for even traditional entertainment offerings like comics to capitalize on it. Dilbert.com has embraced this through what they call “mashups”, which will allow readers to create their own versions of Dilbert cartoons. The first feature to be added will let users insert their own captions into the final frame of the strip. The mashup function will expand in May to allow users to caption the entire cartoon, or allow them to write the first frame and pass it to friends to fill in the rest.

I added my twist to this strip:

Though the process was fun, the user interface leaves much to be desired, which I suspect is the reason behind the readers’ revolt. First of all, the new site required users to run Flash to look at every strip, and many have complained that this feature slows down their machines. Archived strips were hard to find, and it seems some readers are on the verge of revolt. One says, “I just registered to tell you, that the new layout sucks big time! Lose the layout or lose your readers!” Another user jokes, “Which of the Dilbert characters is responsible for this?”

While some people will grimace and groan at the smallest change in their routine (Dilbert readers may be particularly prone to this, I suspect), the users’ problems with Dilbert’s Web 2.0 makeover seem justified in their disappointment. The user interface of the new site is abysmal, and fancy new features are not what readers want. It seems like some basic usability testing could have prevented this backlash, and hopefully the site’s developers are reading the user comments and taking copious notes. More isn’t always better; better is better. A little less emphasis on trendy techniques and more consumer research could have made for a smooth, controversy-free launch.

That being said, I still find myself exploring the hard-to-navigate archives in search of the perfect strip with which to prank my boss and coworkers. On that account, the new site is a brilliant example of the power of user-generated content. Die-hard Dilbert fans get the opportunity to step into his cubicle hell (and out of their own), and that just may save Adams’ his online readers.

In a recent article, Talkibie reported on the increase in software and services that are jumping from the desktop to the web. Large, infrastructure-rich companies are enabling this change by allowing smaller web-based businesses to rent scalable portions of their massive computing clouds. Amazon, one of the largest web companies in the world, has taken this concept to the next level with their Web Services division. To coin a term, Amazon Web Services is making a mark in the Cloud As A Service (CAAS) industry, and their dedication to providing a good user experience is paying off.

Amazon has created this division as a way to leverage unused portions of their infrastructure. Their network is massive, designed to withstand peaks of activity, but it’s power is not needed consistently. By renting it out for reasonable rates to smaller companies, they are enabling their customers to enhance and scale applications that otherwise would be impossible (both financially and technologically). As their website puts it, “We innovate for you, so that you can innovate for your customers.”

One new service Amazon is offering is known as Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), which provides web-scale computing capacity to help developers manage applications as they grow or decline in popularity. EC2 is in beta at the moment, but it works in conjunction with Amazon’s storage, database, and queuing services (code-named S3, Amazon DB, and SQS respectively). For developers, their website explains how to use EC2:

• Create an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) containing your applications, libraries, data and associated configuration settings. Or use pre-configured, templated images to get up and running immediately.
• Upload the AMI into Amazon S3. Amazon EC2 provides tools that make storing the AMI simple. Amazon S3 provides a safe, reliable and fast repository to store your images.
• Use Amazon EC2 web service to configure security and network access.
• Start, terminate, and monitor as many instances of your AMI as needed, using the web service APIs.
• Pay only for the resources that you actually consume, like instance-hours or data transfer.

The service is not for the casual user, as it takes a baseline of knowledge to scale and backup applications. As the last bullet suggests, Amazon is trying to keep their EC2 service affordable and appropriate to actual usage. This is also true for Simple Storage Service (S3), which allows storage and access to any amount of data through the web. Their huge infrastructure allows unlimited objects from 1 byte to 5 gigabytes to be held and retrieved using a unique developer-assigned key. Users can grant access to others on their team as well, enabling web-based collaboration.

Amazon Web Services has experienced a few outages, most notably this February. As TechCrunch notes, other startups (including Twitter) who rely on S3 or EC2 experienced problems as a result. No doubt as Amazon’s reliability will increase as they perfect their new role. Astoundingly, the bandwidth AWS customers use has now surpassed that used by all of Amazon’s global sites combined! If you’re measuring by bandwidth, that means that Amazon’s cloud tenants are now larger than Amazon’s retail customers.

As Amazon Web Service’s official blog notes, “There are any number of references on the Web to Amazon’s focus on being the ‘earth’s most customer centric company’.” For this reason, Amazon has opened the flood gates of user opinion, allowing developers to share their experiences with each new service as it’s unveiled. “I encourage each you [developers] to read the spec and send us your thoughts on whether the team’s work meets your needs…We’re serious about making certain our Web Services are the best on earth for you, the customer.” And that excellence, in turn, is passed on to the customers of businesses who benefit from Amazon’s cloud.

YouTube is the most popular video-sharing community online today. Recently, YouTube officials have announced the launch of their newest marketing tool called YouTube Insight. This feature tracks the views of each video a user posts, and provides the users with potentially valuable marketing information. According to YouTube’s blog, this tool “enables anyone with a YouTube account to view detailed statistics about the videos that they upload to the site. For example, uploaders can see how often their videos are viewed in different geographic regions, as well as how popular they are relative to all videos in that market over a given period of time.” The blog goes on to list other advanced feature of this service, such as tacking the life cycle of an upload (which also helps to measure the popularity of the video over time). YouTube asserts that Insight will help increase the popularity of user videos by helping them to target specific users.

The catch? Some of the more advanced data will be reserved for paid advertisers. Industry experts believe that this is part of Google’s initiative to turn a profit on its $1.76 billion purchase of YouTube back in 2006. According to an article released by CNN.com, marketers will now have access to more refined data about the geographic popularity of their advertisement campaigns. While advertisers currently get large amounts of data about the performance of their ads on YouTube, this new feature will help them to target areas where their ads are most viewed. This will also, in turn, help to generate profits from YouTube’s thriving community. As the CNN article points out, “Despite growing interest in online video ads, many marketers have stayed away from user-generated video like what’s on YouTube.” This new feature will, hopefully, draw new advertisers to invest in YouTube.

However, individual YouTube users will also be able to benefit from this new tool. According to Tracy Chan, a YouTube program manager, YouTube Insight will give ” a lot of context around the performance of video over time, where are your audience coming from and how your message is connecting to your audience.” For the average user, this has positive implications. Amateur video producers, new and upcoming bands, and fresh entertainment acts (comedians, troupes of actors, etc.) could use this new feature from everything from planning a tour schedule to targeting new and bigger audiences (at least in the U.S.; one of the few criticisms of Insight is that it does not yet provide in-depth data on viewers or video popularity outside of the United States). This could potentially be a very useful marketing tool for the next generation of entertainers.

As Mr. Chan said in a recent interview, “Effectively, YouTube has become an ad-effectiveness, or an insight-effectiveness, tool. YouTube has millions of viewers every single day, and has become the world’s largest focus group.” YouTube Insight will undoubtedly add to the already enormous popularity of the YouTube web community. By being able to specifically target areas where a certain genre of videos and ads will be most popular, users and marketers alike will have a lot to gain from the use of this service. It looks like Google can soon expect to see that profit margin it has been hoping for from this website.

Adobe has long been known for their software applications which appeal to designers, developers, businesses, and everyday users. They are now making a series of moves into the “Software As A Service” (SAAS) industry, in a clear attempt to compete with Google and Microsoft. At the Max show late last year, Adobe announced their plans for a new file-sharing service called Share, which will allow users to create, organize, publish, and collaborate through web-based applications. The first step in this SAAS direction was their purchase of Virtual Ubiquity and its online word processor called Buzzword.

Virtual Ubiquity was based in Waltham, MA, and CEO Rick Treitman told eWeek that the plan for Buzzword was to, “build a full-featured word processor that made no sacrifice about running on the Web.” The goal with Buzzword was to work with the endless possibilities of web-based applications to create a user experience that was not only convenient, but also slick-looking. As Treitman commented to eWeek, “We tried everything - Java, .NET, AJAX, and we settled on Flash.” Adobe’s popular plugin was the tool Virtual Ubiquity used to deliver an interactive, real-time word processor that delivered a uniquely “online” experience.

With Adobe’s acquisition of Buzzword, the site was launched to critical acclaim. Buzzword feels more professional than Google Docs, allowing users to create documents which incorporate graphics and images for a business presentation, a poster, or an advertisement. Like Docs, Buzzword allows you to share and collaborate on documents without using attachments, which solves the problem of multiple versions. Users can specify the level of access to any document, allowing one colleague to become a co-editor while limiting another to read-only privileges. Any collaborator can add comments to a sidebar, allowing the team to suggest changes without making them permanent. The Share service will also give users 1 GB of free storage online.

Aside from the sleek design typical of Adobe products, the Flash-based word processor boasts a powerful “help” system to assist those of us who are slow to learn new applications. In addition to pop-up prompts that provide keyboard commands, Buzzword has a great help center accessible from a drop-down menu at the top of every document. And when an action fails (like pasting an image from the clipboard) the user is immediately notified as to why it happened and how to fix it. In addition to the hand-holding for new users, the online word processor is open to comments and discussions from the community. Buzzword’s discussion forum provides a place for users to get together for problem solving, and also features a virtual “suggestion box” for improving the service. Many user questions are answered by the big wigs at Virtual Ubiquity/Adobe itself, which adds to the sense of community.

Buzzword is especially useful for documents containing images, tables, or graphics, as images can be dragged and dropped with text flowing automatically around them. With the expansion of the Share service, Adobe will allow developers to create mashups with their Flex applications using Flash previews of documents from Buzzword. This kind of integration and flexibility is key for any designers or developers who use online word processors, and it is a distinct advantage over Google Apps, which does not have the software to compliment their SAAS offerings.

However, in my exploration of Buzzword I have noticed several problems that are reflected in the user discussion forums. First things first: it takes a while to load. Granted, Flash pieces are nice visually, but they can sometimes get in the way of a good user experience. Buzzword can sometimes take as much as 15 seconds to get going, which could be a turnoff to impatient users. As a writer, I rely on a solid thesaurus, which is not built-in to Buzzword. This feature is in the works, though not in the near future.

As an editor, I also love being able to open two documents side by side (in tabs within the same browser window). Buzzword does not allow you have multiple documents open at the same time in the same window, which is essential in some business settings. Also, perhaps the biggest barrier to successful competition with Google and Microsoft is the lack of spreadsheet or presentation apps. Adobe is not likely to overlook these functions for long, as it is an often requested feature on their discussion forum. For now, though, Buzzword looks like it will be the main focus of their SAAS efforts.

Buzzword is currently free, though industry experts predict that a premium service of some sort will develop with the expansion of the Share service. Overall, Buzzword is a solid product and good tool for Adobe to test the SAAS waters. The interface is friendly and attractive, and it’s likely to appeal to a more enterprise/developer audience than Google Apps. As the product continues to evolve, it will be interesting to see how Adobe positions itself in this emerging world of online document creation, sharing, and storage.

For more information or to sign up for Buzzword, visit www.buzzword.com.

Last spring, Microsoft launched a new browser plugin called Silverlight, which was designed to give developers of Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) another weapon in their arsenals. Silverlight, which competes with products like Adobe Flash, Java FX, Quicktime, and Adobe Shockwave, allows web-based applications to be developed with animation, vector graphics, and video/audio playback capabilities. Now, as the launch of Silverlight 2.0 nears, RIA development teams are taking notice of the flexibility and convenience of Microsoft’s attempt to rival Adobe.

Silverlight 2.0 is slotted for release sometime in the first quarter of 2008, with a beta version expected in time for Microsoft’s MIX conference in early March. The new version adds value for developers by supporting .NET languages and development tools. This means that content can be coded in a myriad of languages, including some dynamic languages like Ruby and Python. Fast and efficient video delivery and animation is Microsoft’s main focus with Silverlight, and it appears to be paying off.

Some of the features that have RIA developers eagerly awaiting Silverlight 2.0 include:

• Support for Windows-based and Macintosh systems (Linux support is in the works through third-party Moonlight)
• Quality vector-based graphics, media, animation, text, and video which can be integrated into an existing web app
• Enhancement capability for existing standards in RIAs (AJAX, etc.)
• Fast installation due to small (2 MB) file size
• Ability to work in a variety of browsers
• Choice of development languages using .NET framework
• Uniformity in media format which can be scaled for different media (HD or mobile), and support for WMA and MP3 audio
• Text-based XAML format which allows RIA content to be searched and indexed

The tool’s creators hope that Silverlight will stand up to the unusual scrutiny that is so often directed at Microsoft products. They want to present a solid, attractive alternative to Adobe products, which have dominated the design world, while still appealing to developers. In a recent interview with eWeek, Cynergy Systems VP Dave Wolf describes the reason he things Silverlight will take off. “There is no question that the Microsoft developer community is huge, passionate and, for the most part, they get enterprise software development.” For industry insiders like Wolf, Silverlight is a flexible option for developers who don’t use Flash technology.

Silverlight has won several awards, including CNET’s Webware 100 Award, which is significant since it’s based on voting by industry insiders. It’s an early victory for a relatively young technology. Perhaps the most promising thing about Silverlight’s positive reception is the continued expansion of RIAs into the mainstream. More and more developers are relying on technology which allows the seamless incorporation of multiple media, and Silverlight is another step in that direction. The web application world is becoming more inclusive of video, sound, and animation, and users are starting to expect a web experience saturated with these interactive elements. Silverlight 2.0 will make it easier and more efficient for developers to give the people what they want. And that is always a good thing.

Almost every enterprise within the software or application development world has acknowledged the need for metrics to measure the usability of their products. However, as a recent Baseline Magazine article points out, almost no one is measuring the development process itself, which means that our processes are largely untested, inefficient, and potentially wasteful. Up to this point, the only research most managers do into their team’s success is to walk through the bullpens once a day and ask, “How’s it going?”

This isn’t because of a lack of desire or a belief that this type of information gathering is unimportant. As Forrester researcher Carey Schwaber told Baseline, “The common units to measure developer productivity are variable or inaccurate. The fundamental problem is that it’s difficult to size software.” In other words, the metrics for measuring the development process have not been standardized, tested, or scaled to the industry.

For this reason, most organizations gather absolutely no data on how their process is working, if they even have a formal process at all. Forrester research found that just 63 percent of managers had metrics in place at all, not to mention whether or not action was taken as a result of the data. Also, the metrics they mentioned are general business concerns, and they are not specific to application or software development. Common measurement points include employee productivity, cost management, defects, and scheduling; none of these points are tailored to what design and development teams actually do.

For this reason, we’ve decided to make a short list of metrics that can be used specifically to measure the success of application development teams. Here are a few metrics to consider implementing within your development process.

Quality of product at each stage - Check often for problems or errors within the design. These act as the metrics within the metrics. It’s important to keep a running tally of issues at every stage so they can be solved as the need arises or as the project progresses. One of the factors of success is to show the client a working, quality proof of concept at key intervals. This lets your client know that you’re paying attention to details and you won’t forget to take the small steps that make the finished application high quality. This will also help convince the client that more time is needed if you run into scheduling concerns. While fast food customers might want poor quality as quickly as possible, your clients probably don’t. They’ll be willing to wait if they know the finished product will be better in the end.

Effective management - The old saying, “There are too many cooks in the kitchen,” applies well to application development teams. Top heaviness is a sure way to create communication problems, which leads to a poor quality product. If your organization is structured in a less-hierarchical model, nominate one member of the team to take charge of communicating and assigning tasks. Make sure your team has strictly defined roles, and check often to be sure that they’re collaborating and sharing key information. A great way to ensure collaboration is to use a project management application like Makibie Connect or Open Workbench. These tools are designed to encourage communication and track scheduling for a team with diverse roles.

Skill development - This is a great way to measure the success of your team in the long term. When an individual developer can add new skills or knowledge to the process, you are better positioned to deliver unique value to your clients. If your group develops new skills or gains new insight, you have a great barometer of the success of future projects. This metric also has the bonus of looking into the past. Did your team create a better product than last year because of a seminar they attended or a new employee with unique insight? Measuring the skill development of your group can show you not only short-term success but also long-term growth.

Business value - While it’s easy to dismiss this category as cost vs. return on investment (ROI), business value can be much more than simply tallying up your profits on any given project. If the application you deliver does not support any of your long term business goals, it does not matter how much money it brought in. A good example of this is in Starbucks’ recent decision to discontinue breakfast sandwiches. Financially, they were a success for the coffee giant, but they did not support the brand or the quality coffee that is Starbucks’ primary focus. The same concept should be applied to application development. Not only should a product be financially successful, but it should also give your business a boost towards meeting fundamental goals and values.

User satisfaction - This is undoubtedly the most important of all application development metrics. Whether your code is perfect or your clients are pleased with the design, the only opinion which really impacts your success is that of the user. The best way to ensure user satisfaction throughout the development process is to implement frequent testing. The more users who examine your project, the more chance you have of getting it right. Ideally, testing should be done every time you show the client a new prototype. This will provide you with a laundry list of changes that need to be made before the next cycle.

Most teams are asked to improve their productivity, quality, and cost-effectiveness, and most have no idea how to do so. These traditional metrics serve simply to justify your team’s existence to the powers that be, but that is not always enough. Using a set of data points specific to application development can not only justify your existence, but also prove your unique value within any given enterprise.

While many businesses understand the benefits of some kind of service-level agreement (SLA) with their IT providers, they often neglect to put serious time or thought into drafting one that maximizes the contract. A good SLA should not only lay out customer expectations and terms of service, but it should also provide metrics for measuring performance and provide incentives for a job well-done. Creating a customized SLA could save your business time, money, and provide a better user experience.

Good SLAs address a few key questions:

• What will the provider promise to do, and how will they do it?
• How will their performance be measured?
• How will the SLA adapt to changes?
• What will serve as incentives or penalties?

In answering these questions, businesses can tailor their SLAs directly to the needs of their organization. Be sure your expectations are realistic, comprehensive, and specific. It’s important to have an accurate idea of what is possible and what is impossible. Think of the SLA as an insurance policy. It’s meant to ensure you stay up and running in case of a major disaster, but it’s also meant to help your IT provider perform well in case of a serious meltdown. Like any good contract, an SLA is two-way legal protection, and negotiating the terms up front can ensure that expectations on both sides are reasonable. This is the major reason to establish performance metrics. Do you need faster response times? Do you need to meet a monthly volume goal? Do you need to reduce the total amount of time employees spend on certain tasks? By laying out specific goals and metrics from the start, your IT provider is in a better position to meet your needs.

So why not draw up an air-tight, comprehensive service-level agreement? The answer is simple: you will pay more for services that you might not need. Just as you wouldn’t need a minivan for your solo commute to work, you may not need some of the services your IT provider is trying to throw into your SLA. One easy way to determine exactly what you need to include is to conduct a survey of users from various backgrounds and departments. Find out what really matters to the end user, and you can potentially save a good deal of money by customizing your IT coverage.

One of the most interesting new trends in IT service is the negotiation of in-house service-level agreements. Some companies are starting to write up SLAs with their internal IT groups, complete with metrics, incentives, and penalties. While some might scoff at this idea, suggesting that internal contracts aren’t effective, others have embraced the trend as a way to track cooperation and success between departments. Even though you cannot sue your own IT department for breach of contract, you can use a combination of metrics and incentives to improve their performance. Once compensation is tied to success, everyone will be on board with an internal SLA.

In the end, as with any product or service, the most important measure of success is the overall user experience. Be ready to reevaluate your measurement techniques and criteria if you find a disconnect between the user experience and the metrics you defined in the SLA. If your customers (be they in-house employees or outside clients) see an improvement, then your efforts have been successful. Also, it’s advisable to put a process in place which will enforce the measurements in real time and help ensure that the SLA is being met. This can be done by using tools from companies like Gomez or building your own measurement. Regardless of how you choose to enforce the measurement, creating, communcating and sticking to a good SLA is a win-win for everyone involved - especially the end users.