// March 29th, 2007 // No Comments » // Online Marketing
Pronet Advertising is hosting an interesting game called Search Engine Smackdown.
It’s a Flash game that pits the founders of Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft against one another. The player has to answer search-engine-oriented questions and if you answer correctly, your founder puts the “smackdown” on the other founder.
So it’s not Halo 3, but it’s funny.
// March 29th, 2007 // No Comments » // Security & Privacy
With identify theft on the rise, I’ve often wondered where I’d start if it ever happened to me.
YourCreditAdvisor.com has a 24-point checklist for recovering your identity that seems pretty comprehensive.
Needless to say, if it ever happens to you, you’ll be one busy individual trying to recover it.
Establishing a pattern of always paying with cash as much as possible can be one step in minimizing your exposure. Spending money you already have – instead of charging it – is always a good idea as well, and apparently when you pay with cash, you’re more inclined to spend less than when using a credit card.
Identity theft happens to real people. I found out last weekend a house behind ours was purchased using a stolen identity.
// March 23rd, 2007 // No Comments » // Online Marketing
Gary Angel has a great article on the Semphonic blog about the key issues faced in implementing Web Analytics platforms.
Here are my favorites:
5. Thinking Analysis Doesn�t Require Analysts
“…Useful analysis is a time consuming activity (we usually spend 3-6 weeks on an analysis) invariably requiring decisions about how and what data to use, how to interpret the numbers and how to apply the results to meaningful decisions….”
As he says, the thirst for numbers regularly outpaces the analysis needed to deliver reliable, “actionable” business intelligence on which sound decisions are based. Putting a closed-loop between management and the analytics platform is a recipe for disaster, but it happens all the time. Without the analysts doing their thing, it’s not really analytics, now is it?
Another favorite is this one…
6. Not Tying Change to Measurement
“…it�s frankly staggering how many organizations with perfectly good measurement virtually ignore it when deciding what and how to change their site.”
Like security, measurement is an all-or-nothing thing. You can’t use it selectively if you expect to deliver on your web strategy goals with any consistency. You must take the time to ensure your measurement infrastructure is sound, your methodology is verified, and your data is reliable before making changes to your site.
Excellent points!
// March 7th, 2007 // No Comments » // Technology
Tim O’Reilly has an article on O’Reilly Radar entitled Programming Language Wars, Part One, where he discusses books sales on the major programming languages.
Interestingly, book sales in those areas fell overall YoY for the last year, with the exceptions being Actionscript (Javascript for Flash), JavaScript, Ruby, and SQL. JavaScript was up sharply, driven (as he says) by the interest in Ajax programming.
Even my beloved PHP was off, but then why would anyone buy a book when the online docs are some of the best in the industry?
// March 6th, 2007 // No Comments » // Business & Politics, Online Marketing
Interesting tales from a guy that’s interned/worked at all three major search engine companies. Nothing revolutionary in terms of business news, but interesting tidbits about cultural differences and a case study for folks seeking internships at these companies.
