"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics" – Mark Twain
Have a passion for data? Think yourself something of a BI/analytics guru? Does your heart sing whenever you see a well-turned chart (and your toes curl whenever you see something like this)? Looking for a new gig worthy of your exceptional talents? If so, then I might just have the perfect opportunity for you. I’m … Read more
Display Monetization Group, Microsoft Advertising Bellevue, Washington The Display Monetization Group is accountable for improving the yield of Microsoft’s online Display advertising offerings across our owned & operated properties (MSN, Windows Live and so on) and the Microsoft Media Network. A core function within the team is Yield Business Intelligence – providing data and reporting … Read more
The gloves will be tied tight. Brightly colored silk dressing gowns will be shrugged to the floor; gum-shields inserted. In the blue corner: yours truly. In the red (and blue, yellow and green) corner, web analytics heavyweight, Avinash Kaushik. As the crowd bays for blood, battle will be joined. The Garden never saw anything like … Read more
Curmudgeonly hermit that I am, I don’t often leave my Pacific Northwest aerie and venture out into the wider world (unless you count the Eastside as the wider world, which I don’t). But next Monday, March 30, New York City will be blessed by my mysterious presence, as I participate in a panel at the … Read more
If you’re an adCenter Analytics (ACA) beta customer, or you’ve read my colleague Mel’s posting over on the adCenter Community site, you’ll know that we’ve decided to close the ACA beta program at the end of the year. In some senses, this is a sad day for me, since ACA (then known as Gatineau) was … Read more
My new job is going splendidly so far, thanks for asking – and I’m already busy enough to have to be making excuses about a lack of posts. But how could I hope to succeed without the excellent advice of some of the finest minds in technology and business? First, xkcd offers a helpful primer … Read more
I have exciting (for me) news to share with you today – I have a new job, with the somewhat tongue-twisting title of Director of Yield Business Intelligence Product Management. I know, cool, huh? In case you’re left a little non-plussed by precisely what Yield Business Intelligence is, let me enlighten you: I’m in charge … Read more
The excellent Tom Slee (aka. Whimsley) has been on my blogroll for some time. Tom writes longish posts about a range of interesting topics – at the moment he’s in the middle of a dissertation about whether Amazon’s recommendation service really does help unknown authors to find an audience and side-step the ‘evil’ publishing business … Read more
Now if that headline doesn’t get me some search ranking juice, nothing will – though my contextual ads (left) are likely to be less impressed. I was going to post this earlier in the week, but Eric Peterson’s swashbuckling defense of cookies (and my hand-wringing response) intervened. As it turns out, though, that debate is … Read more
Once upon a time, when I was a young turk, I would assiduously download every last doodad that my employer created as soon as it shipped – or often long before, happily reaching for the pile of floppy disks as I rebuilt my computer for the umpteenth time following the latest toxic combination of untested … Read more