A huge congratulations to 6Wunderkinder for reaching one million users (in 275 days) on Wunderlist!
Wunderlist Reaches One Million Users
Honestly, when I first started using Wunderlist I didn’t think I would completely adopt the application. That is how it usually works for me (and I assume many others) — there are some many great ideas for services and applications that sound great, but unless they are implemented properly they are quickly deleted, deactivated or left unvisited for the rest of time.
» continue readingWith the news that Google is testing infinite scrolling, I think it will be interesting to see how AdWords will distribute ads in this new format.
Will the ads refresh when the “load more” button is hit? Will the ads continue to be delivered further down the page?
I can’t imagine they would remove ad positions from their SERPs. What do you think the best route for ad delivery would be?
» continue readingThe Next Web did a great job of comparing Google+’s growth compared to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn (with a snazy graph to boot). 16 days! It only took Google 16 days while it took Twitter 780 and Facebook 852.
As mentioned by TNW, Google has established a solid brand and an array of useful tools over the past 13 years which definitely contributes to its success. But more importantly Twitter and Facebook were a first of their kind. The comparison of adoption rate is a little misleading because Twitter and Facebook, for the most part, were a first of their kind. A lot of users didn’t know what to expect or the purpose of these platforms.
» continue readingOne of the perks of my job is we have a direct relationship with the search engines, which means that they field our questions when it comes to their new product and services. Having just had a meeting about this today, thought I would expand on Jason Falls’ “Reality To Soon Set In On Google+.”
The biggest thing that stands out to me is that too many tech/social/digital dorks are proclaiming it the holy grail without putting it into proper context. Steve Rubel has pointed out consistently in his stream that the demographic makeup of Plusers is still very tech and engineer/developer heavy. What that means to me is that it’s the echo chamber’s echo chamber. The Scoble Clones and Brogan Heads think G+ is the Shizzle, so the, “next Facebook,” just happened.
While this is definitely true, isn’t this what was great about Twitter when it first sprung up? I loved the fact that the core user-base were the “digital dorks” and like minded – the people in my industry that pass along valuable information. Granted, I know that the general public is going to adopt whatever platform gets picked up by the media frenzy, it is nice to start learning a service when the people that really care are adopting and innovating.
Honestly, there’s a lot to like about Google+. One thing I don’t, however, at least from a marketing standpoint, is the majority of people aren’t there. They’re on Facebook. We also don’t yet know how G+ is going to handle brands and businesses. There’s a lot left to be determined. Jumping ship on a 700-million person behemoth of a marketplace is just short-sighted and hasty.
Having heard reps hash out ideas of what business profiles/pages could look like, there is a load of potential here. Imagine your famous celebrity connecting their profile directly to your brand. If I don’t care about your brand, but care about the celebrity, there can still be a connection there. Same goes for different categories of products. I guess it all depends on how the hierarchy is set up, but I think it is fair to wait until they push out a few iterations.
» continue readingMarco Arment’s insight — Own your identity:
I’ve always built my personal blog’s content and reputation at its own domain, completely under my control, despite being hosted on many different platforms and serving different roles over the years. It has never been a subdomain of any particular publishing platform or host.
This entire article is very similar to something I wrote a while back, but I neglected to include (or even think about) creating an email address at my own domain. I think the problem I’ve had with this is the transition from gmail. Maybe I should begin to look in to this again.
» continue readingStop wearing your diet restrictions like a badge on your sleeve. Seriously.
It is unfortunate that the way our food is processed and how our body’s react has caused food allergies and diseases (celiac). And I completely respect others’ personal choices to adopt a vegetarian or vegan eating regiment.
But we don’t need clarifications that every [catch phrase] food you consume is categorized as gluten-free or vegan. We don’t need to tell be told that you are eating “vegan gumbo” or “gluten-free cookies.” Really? Why can’t you just say cookies? If you just say cookies do you think we are going to be worried because we know you have celiac disease and you made an ignorant choice to consume gluten?
Vegan diets aside, there needs to be medical documentation of celiac disease’s mental side effects: thinking that everyone cares that you are g-free. I understand the importance of the clarification when ordering food, otherwise describe food for what it is — a gluten-free cookie is still a cookie. This is not a self-proclaiming, highly-selective circle — not a hipster food movement — you just can’t process food as well as most can.
If I am not your waiter, I don’t care if your food is gluten-free. I cringe when I hear that phrase.
» continue readingI feel like I’ve read too many in-depth articles reviewing Google+. Reviewers are quick to point out pros and cons, compare against other services and speculate Google’s direction all because the platform is a trending topics.
Honestly, here is the best review I’ve read thus far (and ironically in 140 characters or less) from @LisaFrame:
Simple enough. Google has created plenty of robust products, which look to be linked together quite nicely with Google+. With the service only being a few weeks old, it is hard to speculate the future or decide whether or not it’ll be a Facebook/Twitter killer.
For now, I think users have the chance to define the platform by digging in to the features currently available and leveraging them in a personalized way.
Discovery is what makes new technologies fun, right?
» continue readingI’m halfway through reading The Late American Novel: Writers on the Future of Books for the 2nd time this week. It is no coincidence that certain excerpts stand out long after I’ve closed the pages. Here is a portion of one of my favorite essays “An Interview with Tom Piazza on the Future of the Book”:
TP: Computers and e-books and smartphones all basically look alike. They are strictly vehicles; you pick them up to step through them into some consensus reality; you’re wired in. Everything is leveled out. When everything has equal weight, everything is weightless. The world they offer is one of infinitely diverse information with a common denominator: the screen. The computer is neutral in that is gives you access to limitless amounts of information, but the one requirement is that you have to get it on the computer. The information has no smell, no weight, no texture. Nothing that seriously impinges on your reality. People think it represents some kind of democratizing of information because everything’s the same size. But democracy is when things of different sizes get a chance to mix it up and work it out, measure themselves in their perspective strengths. If everything is the same size, there’s no perspective. Perspective, as in, you know, painting. Everything becomes two-dimensional, flat…
A common theme throughout this collection is the digital age of books, but this definitely has one of the heavier impacts for me. There is, without a doubt, an irony in reading this book on an e-reader; either way, I highly recommend cracking open the pages (or scrolling through it).
» continue readingI received Volume 1 of Google Analytics Benchmarking Newsletter today and found that it was full of great information, but there wasn’t an efficient way to share this information. So, for the time being, I am going to post the email in it’s original form right here. Enjoy!
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Google Analytics Benchmarking Newsletter
2011, Volume 1, July 2011
1. Introduction
Welcome to the first volume of the Analytics Benchmarking Newsletter!
This month, we are replacing the standard “benchmarking” report in your Google Analytics account with data shared in this newsletter. We are using this newsletter as an experiment to surface more useful or interesting data to Analytics users. Data contained here comes from all websites which have opted-in anonymous data sharing with Google Analytics. Only those website administrators which have enabled this anonymous data sharing will receive this “benchmarking” newsletter.
You may be wondering, how many websites are in this “anonymous data sharing” pool? Currently, hundreds of thousands, and we’ve endeavored to make all of the metrics here statistically significant.
The date range of comparison for this newsletter is from November 1, 2010 – February 1, 2011. Comparison is done with data from November 1, 2009 – February 1, 2010. Absolute metrics such as total # visits, pageviews, or conversions for all opted-in websites are not reported.
To simplify the prose, the phrase “websites” will represent “websites which have opted into anonymous data sharing with Google Analytics” for the rest of this newsletter.
» continue reading