So what outputs and outcomes do you get for that expenditure?

Here are two quick answers.

Stuff moves . Waste or food or agricultural material or biomass is moved. We’ll deal with how much stuff moves, and what that’s worth in a future newsletter.

People look at the website. This is what you would call “communications & awareness” value, or what advertisers would call “advertising value.”

In this issue of the newsletter, we go into detail on what your website gives you in terms of web traffic. Jackie provides guidance on all sorts of stuff about ‘visitors’ and ‘visits’ and ‘daily visits’ and ‘robots’ and so on.

This is all good, but if you just want to do a quick payback calculation for the advertising/awareness value, here’s how.

Go to your webstats page and look up the # of pageviews (per day, per month, or annually).

Multiply the # of pageviews by about $3 to $5 per 1000 pageviews. (The value given is conservative, based on what you would pay using Google Adsense advertising—simple text ads).

The result is what an advertiser would pay you to get one ad on your website. Or, in other words, is the “communications & awareness value” of your site.

We believe that the combination of a reusables exchange (or stuff or food or agricultural exchange) with the other information on your website (news, events, directories, guides, links, etc) brings significant traffic. And this traffic translates into ‘pageviews’ which translates into advertising/awareness value.

Some people on the internet call that ‘eyeballs.’ Whatever you call it, it translates into value.

If you’d like me to provide you with a ‘value snapshot’ for your website, just give me a shout.

Regards,

Norm

All exchanges provide a web statistics module. This part of your statistics control panel provides information on traffic to your exchange, including information about visitors, how long they stayed and what pages they looked at. We have now moved to the AWStats package to provide this information. Some newer exchanges already used this package but we have made it universal. The older module (Webalizer) is no longer supported, and we believe AWStats provides more accurate traffic statistics and a more easily interpreted data set.

To see your web stats :

1. Click 'Statistics' under 'Manage the Exchange' in your admin panel.

2. Then click on 'Domain Web Statistics' under 'Internet Traffic.'

We've prepared an overview of the web statistics page to help you interpret the information you find there. Please see this tutorial for further information: http://www.iwastenotsystems.com/admin_guides/domain_web_stats.pdf

Due to the change in the web statistics package, some exchanges may no longer have 2009 stats available on their exchange.

To see where your 2009 stats can be found, click here: http://www.iwastenotsystems.com/support/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=2036

An iWasteNot system generates a variety of reports and information. Besides the Statistics control panel, there are a few other areas containing informative pages. A trip to the Listings control panel can tell you how well your exchange is doing, keep you on top of management, and give you ideas on changes you may wish to make.

Quick Stats

Want to know how many available listings or unapproved listing are currently on your exchange?

To see 'Quick Stats' click on 'Listings' under 'Manage the Exchange.'

What each one means:

Total: 56479 > The total number of listings that have ever existed on your exchange.

Current: 1394 > The number of listings currently on the exchange. It excludes deleted, expired or otherwise removed listings.

Active: 1394 > The number of current listings which can be viewed on the exchange.

Approved: 1394 > The number of current listings which are approved on the exchange.

Unapproved: 0 > The number of current listings which have not yet been approved.

Available: 1250 > The number of current listings which are marked Available.

Wanted: 140 > The number of current listings which are marked Wanted.

Free: 98 > The number of current listings where price is set to FREE or $0.00

No Price: 0 > The number of listings with no price set. NOTE: this is not the same as 'FREE', above

Deleted: 55085 > The total number of listings that have ever been deleted from your exchange.

Expired: 14466 > The total number of listings that have ever expired on your exchange.

Successful: 22827 > The total number of listings that members marked successful while deleting them.

Successful Confirmed: 22824 > The total number of listings that members marked successful, and that were confirmed by an administrator and used to generate reports and statistics.

Successful Unconfirmed: 3 > The total number of listings that members marked successful, but have not been confirmed by the administrator, and cannot be used to generate reports and statistics.

User Comments left during Listing Removal

When a member deletes a listing, they are asked if it is a successful exchange and they are given the option of adding a comment.

Here are a few examples from The Madison Stuff Exchange :

“2 in 2 days! this works much better than Craigslist!”

“It was donated to a needy family by the person who picked it up!”

“Thank you for the use of your board. I thought it might be a stretch to consider this recycling but it sure beats having to burn the stuff because I can't get to the recycle site.”

 

To see 'User Comments left during Listing Removal':

1. Click on 'Listings' under 'Manage the Exchange'

2. 'User Comments left during Listing Removal' under 'Manage Listings.'

We changed the approve/activate account process, which affects exchanges that utilize the approve/activate new members function. Previously when an admin approved a new account, the account was not activated. Now, when the account is approved, it is automatically activated.

We also added an [Approve] button next to the [View] [Edit] and [Delete] buttons on the 'Unapproved' members page, and fixed a functionality issue. For more details, click here:

http://www.iwastenotsystems.com/support/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=2057

http://www.sharedharvest.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=116&t=333

To learn how to activate and approve accounts, download the tutorial here:

http://www.iwastenotsystems.com/admin_guides/activate_approve_member_acct.pdf