"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics" – Mark Twain
There’s an interesting post over on Marketing & Graphic Design ROI which raises the point that web analytics dashboards can do more harm than good in some cases, by encouraging users to focus on (and get excited about) metrics that are not necessarily the most important ones that they should be measuring (Joseph cites an example … Read more
Interesting to read of the launch of Browzar, a web browser (actually, a wrapper for the IE HTML rendering component in Windows) which doesn’t store auto-complete info, browsing history, or (most significantly) persistent cookies. So another blow for the web analytics industry – though I predict that Browzar will remain a relatively minor player in … Read more
Eric Peterson has an interesting post on his blog about a couple of ideas he’s had for measuring ‘Web 2.0’ usage – by which he means sites that use AJAX for in-page events, and (in particular) mashup other apps or web services. Essentially, Eric suggests two methods: Web service apps (e.g. Google Maps) implement the ability to … Read more
News reaches me that marketing technology & services firm J.L. Halsey has acquired ClickTracks and Hot Banana. It looks like J.L. Halsey is rounding out their e-marketing management & analysis capabilities. They’ll need to keep acquiring, though – I predict they’ll go for a bid management tool next. The Search Works, perhaps? The acquisition also … Read more
In a piece of rather sad news for the AJAX/Web 2.0 movement, online calendaring application vendor Kiko is putting itself up for sale for $50,000, via (of course) eBay. Seems that they couldn’t get traction in their space and so have decided to throw in the towel. The founders of Kiko have written some interesting … Read more
By now the story that AOL has released the search phrases used by over half a million of its users has gone round the web a hundred times. AOL themselves have admitted that they screwed up in letting this data out into the public domain in what was, apparently, an honestly-meant attempt to reach out … Read more
Interesting article in Newsweek about whether Google will succeed with its non-search products, and an interesting counterpoint blog post on why it dosesn’t matter. (Thanks to Slashdot for the heads-up)
I’m writing this post from 33,000 feet in the air, about half of the way into a flight from London Heathrow to Seattle. My watch (still on London time) says it’s 10pm – the clock on my computer (Seattle time),2pm. So part of me is telling me that I should be getting on with work, … Read more
My quest for the perfect blogging tool may be of limited interest to anything to anyone other than me, but I’m excited today to learn of the release of Windows Live Writer, a new tool from my colleagues in the Windows Live team which makes it easy (at least I hope so – this is my … Read more
Have just finished watching a very short Channel 4 programme about Second Life – featuring a woman who not only makes a healthy living selling jewellery, flowers and all sorts of other stuff inside the ‘game’, but also met her husband (rendered on-line as a rather trendy-looking blue metallic robot, rendered in real-life as a … Read more