Markiter believes strongly in the value of A/B testing, and using real data to make decisions.  However - the issue can be much more complicated than at first glance.  Many people will put up two designs and test with Google Weboptimizer and go with the better converting option.  The problem here is that you are only discovering the local maximum for conversions - and have no way of knowing how well that compares against the global maximum.

A quick analogy will help make things more clear.  If you want to climb to the top of a mountain in a snowstorm, you will keep heading up until you are at a peak.  However, you could just be still on the side of the mountain on a small peak and nowhere near the top.

A great example of this in action is illustrated at:

http://www.blastam.com/broadcast/2008/12/google-website-optimizer-test-we-didnt.html  

They ended up taking the losing option from Weboptimizer and tweaking it to get to a far better result.  This case study illustrates the importance of looking beyond the local maximum.

Markiter aims to help you solve this problem.  By providing simple A/B testing with candid feedback, you can perform a study like this on any media.  It could be website mockups for similar results to the example - or it could be posters or demo videos.   Think of the possiblities for using real data to make more educated decisions about media!