Archive for category General
Web Analytics Zen – Back Up and Running!
Posted by Patrick Patterson in General on June 14, 2010
I will update my WordPress blog. I will update my WordPress blog. I will update my WordPress blog.
Keep repeating those words in your head over and over again, because believe me, trying to reinstall a custom WordPress blog is absolutely no fun. After struggling with moving hosting providers, getting my theme back, and installing all the plug-ins, I am finally back in business.
In the meantime I did find some good WordPress plug-ins that I think everyone should check out:
- CR Post to Ping.fm – Automatically sends new blog posts to Ping.fm that will then send it out to all of your social networking sites. I found dealing with this feature through Ping.fm to be easier than trying to manage it within WordPress.
- Google Analyticator – In a previous post I mentioned another WordPress plugin. When looking at the landscape of GA plugins again, I decided to go with this one. #1 reason? More updates recently.
- Google XML Sitemaps – Automatically creates and submits a new sitemap XML every time you post.
- LinkedIn Resume – Grabs your resume on LinkedIn and brings it into your site. Perfect if you just want to update in one place.
- Social Bookmarks – Puts sharing icons on each post. Not the best plug in for this, but I like the unobtrusive manner of just a “Bookmark It” line at the end of each post.
- Surveys – Quick little survey tool.
- WordPress Firewall – Alerts you if anything weird is going on.
- Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP) – Great plugin that automagically suggests related articles based on the content of the current article.
At least this whole thing allowed me to explore some new aspects of WordPress. Hopefully it never happens again.
Hello [HACKED] world!
Posted by Patrick Patterson in General on June 9, 2010
My WordPress blog was hacked. It was just easier to reinstall everything. Forgive me while I get everything ported over.
Please enjoy this in the meantime.
UPDATE: Everything is now fixed though I lost some posts in the mean time. Hopefully will be replacing them with new ones soon!
Using tr.im for Link Tracking (aka Track Those Tweets!)
Posted by Patrick Patterson in General on April 20, 2009
“
Life is a great big canvas, and you should throw all the paint on it you can.” — Danny Kaye
In the world of analytics, this is very true. At the end of the day, you want to throw as much paint (tracking) on whatever you can. And in this world of microblogging and link sharing, tracking how many people click on your links is becoming more and more important. While there are countless (well, I’m sure we could count them) ways to track links like campaign codes and the like, I want to focus on using tr.im’s service exclusively.
tr.im is a URL shortening service that packs a strong analytics punch. Much like other shortening services like tinyurl or bit.ly, tr.im takes any long URL and spits you back a much much shorter version. In fact, it will take any URL and shorten it to just 17 characters. Wow!
Here is where you say, “Ok ok ok, we are already using a shortening service, why should I use trim?” Well, on top of the truncation of URLs, tr.im offers stats for each link that you shorten.
And this tracking is present automatically for each URL that you shorten. No manipulating the URL, no setting redirects, no fuse… just tracking. Oh yeah, link it up with your twitter account and it will automattically tweet the URL with a message for you. That’s what I like. Trust me, you’ll like it too.
Tr.im tracks your tr.im URL’s visits: when they happened, the visitor’s location, the refering website, and, simply, the number of clicks that it got. With tr.im statistics, you know a link’s popularity.
On top of the extremely easy to use web interface, tr.im also offers:
Here are some screenshots to whet your appetite:
Are Your Dashboards Turning Heads?
Posted by Patrick Patterson in General on March 19, 2009
“Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital.” ~Aaron Levenstein
As I’m sitting here creating new dashboards, this quote (or proverb) keeps ringing through my mind. Am I showing the stats here that merely suggest but conceal insight? Or I am making a dashboard of a nude woman? Wait… is that what that quote means?
In all seriousiness though, you want to create dashboards that are going to have the same effect on Sr. Management, as a bikini-less woman would have on the beach. You want to turn heads, create buzz, generate discussion, and stimulate action. Are your dashboards turning any heads?
Here are some helpful blog posts to get you started:
Web Analytics Zen on Wakoopa
Posted by Patrick Patterson in General on March 18, 2009
I have been using Wakoopa for a while now and just found that they do something called teams. If you have not heard of Wakoopa, it is a web application (and desktop client) that tracks your software usage and recommends new software for you to use. They actually go over their own site here: http://wakoopa.com/software/wakoopa
While the actual use of wakoopa somewhat escapes me, I think the team feature could be very valuable in building a list of analytics tools. With the introduction of teams into Wakoopa we now have the ability to focus our software usage together and recommend applications for each other. So come join me and let’s get a good list of analytics software (desktop and web) that everyone uses.
Join here: http://wakoopa.com/teams/wa
Some software applications I am using:
- Omniture
- Google Analytics
- Web Position 4
- Compete
- TubeMogul
What are you using?
Hello, World
Posted by Patrick Patterson in General on March 11, 2009
Oh, that brings me back to being a programmer. From Assembly to BASIC to C++ to JavaScript and on, I have seen those two little words “Hello, World” so many times it’s hard to remember. They usually represent the start of my journey towards a new technology, the beginning of a new idea, or a simple introductory to a more complex system. How appropriate then that they are my first words of this blog.
Welcome to the beginning of my journey into the Wonderful World of Web Analytics! Grab a chair, pour some coffee, kick your feet up, and enjoy.
main() {
printf("Hello, World");
}
Not that this has anything to do with Web Analytics, but you might want to check out The Hello World Collection. This collection includes 421 Hello World programs in many more-or-less well known programming languages, plus 63 human languages.
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