Useful URLs

Below are the sites that I use to keep up to date on the topics discussed in this book.

1. Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

CRM has been around for quite some time so there are more sites and trade publications dedicated to it than many other topics. The industry is already large and projected to grow so the proliferation of CRM-focused site is not surprising. Below are the most significant and important of those sites, at least in my view.

www.searchcrm.com
Part of the techtarget.com family of industry-specific search engines, this is a one-stop shop for CRM needs. It is somewhat more than just a search engine, including a market place to buy CRM-related books and a directory of vendors among other things.

www.CRMguru.com
"Real CRM Gurus. Real Answers." That's the tagline for the site and it's not an unjustified claim. Apart from some useful white papers, definitions and news the real attraction of this site (which had over 42,500 subscribers world-wide at last count) has to be its moderated discussion group CRM.Talk which has a consistently high level of high value contributions and contributors.

http://crmproject.com/
Published by Montgomery Research and sponsored by Andersen Consulting CRM Project is a tome of information on CRM and personalization. Particularly useful is the library of white papers from thought leaders in this sphere. Definitely worth a visit.

www.crm-forum.com "The CRM-Forum is the pre-eminent independent on-line resource centre for CRM professionals working in the business-consumer marketplace. It provides CRM professionals and companies involved in CRM on both the demand and supply side of the industry with a place to keep up-to-date with CRM developments, and to, meet, discuss, and contact each other about CRM-related issues." That is what is says on the site and that is exactly what this site is. A great, deep resource.

www.crmcommunity.com
This site has a strong white papers section but its distinguishing factor when compared to the other resources here is its emphasis on 'community'. More of the content on the site is actually generated by users and the discussion boards are lively and informative as a result.

www.crmassist.com
You would be forgiven for thinking this was a Yahoo site because of its design and navigation. This site is particularly useful for a more technical and vendor skew on CRM: if you're looking for vendor solution white papers, for example, this is definitely the place to come.

www.eccs.uk.com
Clearly the European focus is the unique slant to this site. A slick site that has a good Advice Centre containing plenty of CRM knowledge resources, a European Directory of CRM solution providers, and a unique Product Finder that, whilst not bullet-proof in its results, could be a useful first stab in any product selection process.

www.destinationcrm.com
This is the accompanying site to the industry standard magazines 'CRM' and 'eCRM'. As such it gets a lot of attention, users and traffic. Not surprisingly, good for news and careers as these are the mainstay of the print publications. This site is not quite as compelling as some of the others above but should be in your CRM bookmarks nonetheless.

2. Content Management

Content management is only just beginning to catch on in a big way, so expect the number of sites dedicated to it to increase in the same way as they did to cater for the explosion of interest in CRM. In the meantime the following two sites are my favorites for content management information.

www.cmswatch.com
CMSWatch bills itself as "an independent source of information, news, opinion, and analysis about Web content management." The site contains news, features, reports as well as views on trends. The main focus, however, is around research and analysis of the products and vendors themselves. As this is such a fast evolving arena, the site is very useful in staying up to date.

www.metatorial.com
This site is run by Bob Boiko, author of the 'Content Management Bible' book I recommend in the reading list. There is supporting content for the book on the site but also a lot more valuable resources such as presentations, seminars, white papers, discussions and interviews with experts. Whereas the CMSWatch site is product-centric, this site is more useful for understanding the discipline, practice and concepts of content management.

www.content-wire.com
This site is less specifically about content management and more about online content generally: its creation, production, management, aggregation, publishing and syndication. Whereas the Metatorial and CMSWatch sites are more about research, analysis and thinking around content management, this site is more news and features driven, so there is a higher turnover of more 'light-weight' content.

3. Site Measurement

There are fewer sites that I am aware of that are dedicated to Web site measurement. In most cases, I have pieced together information from various marketing resources that I have come across. If you know of other good sites for this topic, let me know by contacting us I will add it to this list.

http://digitalenterprise.org/metrics/metrics.html
This site was created to be used in conjunction with a graduate-level course taught at North Carolina State University. This page on Web Metrics is just one topic of the online course by Prof. Michael Rappa and it brings together an excellent collection of resources about key issues in website measurement including research, sites to visit, data sources, webcasts and online discussion forum.

http://www.hurolinan.com/
This is the accompanying Web site to Hurol Inan's excellent book of the same title. It is one of the few sites that is truly dedicated to providing resources on Web site measurement. Obviously it encourages you to buy the book, which I think you should anyway, but there is plenty of useful information there even if you do not purchase his book: a glossary of relevant terms, a list of other good books on the topic, lists and brief reviews of site measurement vendors and links to relevant articles.

http://www.targeting.com
This is the Web site of the company that Jim Sterne, author of one of the book I recommend above, is behind. Not surprisingly the site promotes Target Marketing's professional services as well as Jim's books but it also contains some good past articles on Internet marketing and Web metrics. You can also sign up for Jim's 'mostly monthly' newsletter which contains good insight and advice.

Formerly known as NetGenesis, CustomerCentric Solutions, are a product vendor who have done more than most to increase the levels of awareness and knowledge on the topic of Web site measurement. The section on their site dedicated to e-metrics (at http://www.netgen.com/index.cfm?section=solutionsandfile=emetrics the last time I visited) contains some useful resources including a glossary of terms, recommended reading list and a good white paper.

http://www.chi-Web.org
If you want to learn more specifically about usability, then CHI-WEB's moderated discussion list "on the human factor aspects of the World Wide Web" is a great resource. It is targeted at, and used by, usability professionals so the level of contributions is generally high. You can search the list archives to find quickly the information you are after. Past discussions have included log analysis tools and site-centric Web metrics and measurement as well as usability and interface design.