Six Levels of Engagement

In Ken Auletta's new book Googled there is a discussion  of Albie Hecht's idea of the six levels of engagement he uses to evaluate an online product or service.

The audience must be able to

1. Watch on any device
2. Learn by searching for information about it on the web
3. Play (games)
4. Connect - social networks, IM
5. Collect - money on the web
6. Create - user generated content

Hecht says "If we have four of the six, we put it into development. If we get six out of six, we think we have a hit."

Now I acknowledge all of us are not working in the same business vertical as Hecht, but I think this is a very, very valuable tool for thinking about any web site or service.

Looking at your web presence, how does it stack up.

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess the two items most will feel don't apply to them are Play and Collect. You will say you are a business so how do you incorporate Play. You will say your goal on the web is to drive customers to your off-web business so you have no need to collect.

I will tell you that getting paid online is something you need to redesign your business to do or you have just limited yourself to local and business hours. The web is all about everywhere and 24/7.

I will challenge you on Play. Be creative. Try things, then try other things.

I also bet most of you just skipped over the "on any device" piece. What? You don't have an iPhone app? You should start thinking about this.