At some point during the fourth quarter, siteIQ Practice Leaders & Senior Analysts sit down to review the companies included on the eBusiness Index, and discuss whether the Websites we track  represent best-in-class behaviors within each industry segment. Usually, after some debate about each site’s merits & drawbacks, and the company’s industry standing, we come to a group decision regarding which sites to keep—and which ones to kill from the list.

I did something I never thought I’d do. I lobbied that we retire my pet personal systems sites from the eBusiness Index and replace them with three reseller Web properties including CDW.com, Insight.com, and Newegg.com

Not surprisingly, these discussions are usually quite lively, as Practice Leaders lobby for certain sites to be included for review, and often, for entire industry segments to be added to the Index roster. This was certainly the case when Kenna & I petitioned for the Business Software & Personal Systems segments to be added to the eBusiness Index back in 2005, so I was happy that these industries finally earned full-time Index status in the third quarter 2007.

Then, a funny thing happened in the fourth quarter. Read More→