Robert Scoble writes that we need better statistics on web traffic. It got me thinking what sort of application could facilitate this and I think the application would need to have the following characteristics:

• Be a Toolbar - Yes, I know (and Scoble also observes) that most people do not download traffic measurement toolbars today, but if the application is to be effective it has to be ubiquitous. I don’t know that there is anything more ubiquitous than the browser when it comes to the web. I also think that it is not impossible to overcome the problem of people not wanting to download the browser toolbar - read on.
• Allow Optional and Nameless Registration - Concern over privacy is perhaps the biggest reason that online activity tracking toolbars do not get downloaded. I think some of these concerns would be eased if registration did not require people’s names. It would be even better to do away with registration altogether but some demographic data would be required to make the data useful. That said, I think registration should be optional to cater for the more paranoid. Why would anyone register in that case? Read on.
• Give Control to the User - Another major concern people have with these toolbars is that they simply don’t like the idea of something automatically recording and reporting their every online activity. Therefore the tool should offer the option to pause reporting. Maybe another option could be that on visiting a new site the user is prompted (”What are you browsing?”) to send a report and can then choose whether to report their visit to that particular site or not. This could be be very annoying to the user of course, but better to give them the option to be in full control.
• Give an Incentive or Two - To stand any chance of achieving widespread use, an incentive would have to be given to users. A reward (preferably cash) could be given to the most active web users as well as to random users. I think it is important to have both sets of rewards because either on its own wouldn’t be enough.
• Offer Some Other Benefit - Besides the chance to win a reward, the tool should also offer a more immediate and certain benefit to the user - preferably as options. One that springs to mind is displaying a list of other sites visited by other people who have visited the site the user is viewing.
• Be Free - We all know about the Freemium model. Well love it or hate it, it would have to apply here too. In this case however, free means both cost and ad free and there need not be a charge for premium services. The business model could involve selling the data gathered to interested parties in the industry.
• Not Owned by Google - The Fear Of Google (FOG) theory has been talked about a lot really and perhaps unfortunately for Google is very real. Many people would simply not download the toolbar if it were owned by Google - they just wouldn’t. Sorry Google!

The way I see it, a lot of people (myself included) would be happy to send anonymous data about that their use of the web to a trusted company they don’t fear - especially if they stood a chance of winning a reward for doing so and received some other benefit from the application anyway.

So what do you think? If you know of a toolbar that already meets the above requirements then please let me know where to sign up. If there is a hacker out there who is interested in building the thing, let me know and I will share my additional thoughts on it - for a share in the business of course .