Christopher Baker’s exhibition provides commentary on the limitations of the internet as a channel for democratic, participatory media. His video installation prompts the question: Is it necessary or even desirable for eveyone to be heard?

If you are new to web analytics, here are some simple tools to help you get started measuring your online presence and the effectiveness of your website.

The Basics (some level of access for free)

Compete.com - Very helpful for baseline comparison research. View and compare site traffic to your competitors, which sites get most traffic from a keyword, which keywords are sending traffic to your site.

Google Keyword Tool - Number of people searching on Google for keywords related to your industry or organization.

Alexa.com - Does some of the same thing Compete.com does, such as site traffic comparisons, but can also access top sites, demographics and hot URLs.

Yahoo Site Explorer - Find out how many pages your site or a competitors has, internal links, site stats, errors on your site and more.

Google Analytics - If you are just getting started with web analytics and website measurement. Google Analytics is a great tool to introduce to your site and organization. Allows you to track all your website basics and tie your Pay-Per-Click AdWords' buys into one tool. If nothing else, get Google Analytics on your site now. You'll need to paste some tracking code on your site, so plan with your technical people accordingly.

The Next Level (Enhance the basics)

ClickTale - Allows you to view user interactions on your site (like in a usability test) such as where they click, how far they are willing to scroll on a page, and where they are running into trouble or leaving the site. For site managers that want to know more about how users on "using" your site. Allows you to see up to a certain number of interactions for free per month before you need to pay.

CrazyEgg - A more robust version of the Google Analytics overlay tool allows you to visualize how site visitors are using your site. Start using it for a small fee per month.

Other Ideas

Here's a link to a post from FrancescoMugnai about some other great web analytics tools to explore. Now, get measuring!