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There is a new craze thats beginning to sweep the nation - Chumby! But just what exactly is a Chumby? It’s a rather cool compact consumer wireless internet device. About the size of a coffee cup, and has a 2.5 inch touch screen, you can get all kinds of cool info and widgets on it - MySpace, weather, traffic, news, Facebook, email, Flickr photos etc. Basically you name it, and you can use it for it. I don’t own one yet (subtle hint? hehe), but I thought Chumby.com would be a great candidate for my website Review and Rate series. So here we go - just how good is it for potential buyers and owners? Read on and find out… Continue Reading »

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Google Analytics. Its free. Its great for measuring basic web site performance. Recently however, some small free web analytics tools have appeared, looking to better their offerings. And in one area in particular… engagement. As many of us know, because of the rise in web 2.0 like videos and gagdets built in flash and AJAX, the industry can no longer rely on page views as a metric to indicate site popularity. In fact, in July 2007 Comscore and Nielsen both stopped using pageviews as the primary metric for comparing websites - yet still haven’t replaced it… Continue Reading »

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Starbucks seems to be in trouble lately - a surge in competition from companies like McDonalds and Dunkin Donuts, a faltering economy, and their stocks tumbling from $47 to $17. So what did they do in response? Hire a bunch of overpaid experts (HiPPOs) to figure out what customers want?

 No! They turned to the web for a very ingenious idea… Starbucks recently setup a ‘My Starbucks Idea’ website, as a way to gain customer insight. Think of this as the ultimate online survey tool. Starbucks customers join this site, submit their ideas, other people rate them, and Starbucks LISTENS to the ideas and acts on the most popular ones! Amazing.

And they are already acting on ideas being submitted. And one of the ideas being acted on I am truly shocked they are finally doing - free Starbucks wi-fi! Yep, they are going to be offering 2 hours of free wireless internet in their stores (hopefully per visit)! I have wanted them to offer this for so long - many other ‘local’ coffee shops offer this, and was often the reason I visited them instead of Starbucks.

Now this survey website got me thinking. Why doesn’t every major online business offer a survey site like this? It’s a great way to learn the online customers voice. This is much better than simply guessing at what customers want by using traditional clickstream web analytics tools. Come on Amazon.com and Buy.com… if a brick and mortar can do this successfully, its bound to work even better for online companies. So follow the lead here, and see what your online customers really want… you may be surprised!

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There were some interesting stories this past week from the web analytics and internet marketing world. Here are some of my favorite stories/news/articles… check them out:

How Guinness Might Have Converted One Million -  Interesting story from FutureNow (great blog from the Eisenbergs) about Guiness’s online attempt’s to make St Patrick’s Day a national holiday.

StumbleUpon - Demographics and Returning Traffic Spikes - Article from SEOmoz (cool blog!) about how one of my favorite traffic generators actually generates some great return visits.

A look at Traffic to IRS.gov…. have you filled your taxes yet? - Check out the busiest peak time to the website… and its not when you think it would be!

Book Giveway Winners:
And here are the winners from my recent Seth Godin’s Meatball Sundae book giveaway. Congratulations to the winners! I will be emailing the following people to get their mailing address so I can send you your prizes:

poll_tree at yahoo
mark at markpinkerton
cgrant enlighten com

Thanks to everyone who entered!

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‘Watch Your Favorites. Free. Anytime’ - thats the tagline for the brand new so-called ‘YouTube Killer’ website, Hulu.com. Here you can watch full TV episodes for popular shows like The Simpsons and The Office, and classics like Miami Vice, and watch full movies like the Big Lebowski, and is causing quite the stir - but how does it actually live up to its tagline and rate as a website? Seemed like a perfect choice for the second in my series of ‘Website Review & Rate’. So lets get started…. Continue Reading »

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Sorry Seth, I have to admit - I have never managed to convince myself to jump on the Seth Godin bandwagon and read one of your books. But at the recent Omniture Summit, your frank, funny and revealing keynote session, all about the ‘New Marketing’ had my interest peaked. But I still didn’t think I would read your new book called Meatball Sundae. But you got me. Two main reasons converted me… firstly, you gave out free copies, and secondly, its a small book divided into short chapters (echoing your chapter on ‘extremely short attention spans’), which made it quick enough to read on a few plane/train rides. So. I did it. I read it. And i’m glad to say it was very worth while - and worth a review…. Continue Reading »

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You can’t avoid hearing about American Idol these days (unless you happen to live in a cave). So to kick off the first in my new series of ‘Website Review & Rate’, I will be taking a good look at how the AmericanIdol.com website fares. And because of the web analytics geek in me, I also take a look at what analytics tool they are using, and make suggestions for what they should test and improve. Lets get started… Continue Reading »

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I just got back from Omniture Summit ‘08 - and what a great experience it was! Taking place up in Omniture’s home city, Salt Lake City (and what a beautiful city it is), I was fascinated by seeing and meeting so many like-minded web analysts and online marketers. During the keynotes (Seth Godin’s and Lance Armstrong’s in particular were great and inspirational) and sessions, there were some big announcements and valuable insights … here were the major ones: Continue Reading »

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Being from England originally, one of my favorite websites finally got a major homepage redesign today. For years, the trusty english news website, BBC.co.uk looked like it was something that was stuck in the late 90’s. And although it was full of lots information and news on the homepage, it included lots of news that you didn’t necessarily care about. So just how did their homepage redesign rate? Continue Reading »

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Welcome to the second in my series of ‘win at web analytics’ posts - designed to give some true insights into successful web analytics. This time, I focus on one of the fastest growing trends online. Website video recording. And no, not the kind you see on YouTube…

Did you know that can now easily get a complete visual reply of your website visitor’s exact actions without even using a camera? Yes, its true folks. You can see exactly where they move the mouse. Where they pause. How quick they click around your site. Where they give up on your web signup forms. How far they scroll down your pages. How long it takes them to use your site search. Every motivation. Every obstacle. Continue Reading »

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