This is a very in depth post on how mikeindustires.com was able to grab a domain at expiration time:
I recently found myself in the position of wanting to register a domain which was owned by someone else. The domain was set to expire in a week, and I figured there was a decent chance that the person who owned it wouldn’t be renewing it. Upon consulting the WhoIs registry on the current owner, I discovered the guy was a bit of a domain shark and didn’t seem to be around anymore.
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We ran across this tool for real time analytics about a week ago called “chartbeat” – which is just plain cool. I learned of it while enjoying the podcast “This Week in Startups” by Jason Calacanis and crew. #twist
This offers a real time (within seconds) look at the visitors to our site. Some of the metrics are total people on the site; if people are reading, writing or idle; average USER page load times (more how this works later); and a very niffty twitter monitor.
Oh yea – and it keeps a historical record. (At least 30 days worth.)
So How Does it work?
I have had a lot of people ask “How does it work?” and “Doesn’t it cause the server to slow down?” – which is actually the brilliant part about the whole deal. It works with AJAX and analysis on the chartbeat side.
Here’s picture:
chartbeat visual
User goes to your site (which already has the chartbeat embeded in the page.)
Server sends the code back to user’s computer. At this time, a javascript timer is executed within the users browser – to give us an idea of the page load speed.
After the page loads – the browser communicates in very, very small files to the chartbeat server, telling it the information about the page and what they have done. It does this with AJAX and after the page loads – as to not interfere with the transfer of information. (AJAX is asynchronous communication with the server, or stated differently, a message sent to/from the server which doesn’t interfere with the user’s browsing.)
chartbeat takes that data and crunches the numbers, and builds the very cool charts, graphs and dials. Which gives us a look at our site’s performance.
It’s a great idea and one that has saved us a lot of time wondering if the site is slow because of a programming issue – or if we have a sudden influx of users. We can see in real time the story. The cost is $10/month for 5 sites, and is well worth it. (They do not sponsor this blog – I just really, really like the product.)
Take a test drive here. It is a demo chart they have running. Let me know if you like it – or have used it.
Posted in analytics, cloud computing, innovation, marketing 
Tags: analytics, chartbeat, google analytics, metrics, SEO, traffic 
No Comments »I’m not sure I should share this link…but I guess since they already shared it at ProBlogger, I can too.
While SEO is something that is well worth while focusing upon right from the start of your blog – I’ve found that it becomes particularly important once your blog is at least a few months old. In my experience it is not until a blog is 6 to 12 months old that it really begins to grow in its authority in Google.
This article goes hand in hand with my post earlier dealing with SEO.
From a post I found over at SimsBlog with some really good thoughts:
…is how journalists “spent nearly a century denying responsibility and involvement in business decisions”.
…
The result of this siloed newsroom is that a large chunk of the organization has no real understanding of how the business works.
That is a very real idea. In fact, I think they are still running from the business end today.
But let’s not let the advertising department off the hook!
The Big Advertising Department Myth: We sell eyeballs
Not really.
Eyeballs are about mass and placement in the form reader demographics, circulation numbers, lines, columns, colour and position requests.
What advertising departments actually sell is connection and context that lead to sales results.
The article has more interesting information, but it really talking about as newspapers are making excuses and fussing…it’s time to take some responsibility.
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Posted in business, new media, old media Tags: attitude, business, newspapers, responsibility No Comments »
Some say the only kind of fail that is bad, is to not fail at all. I had saved this post from unstructuredadventures for a while – and now seems like a great time to pull it out. It’s called “How to fail: 25 secrets learned through failure” and it is GOOD!
As I was reading, I really wanted to put them all down in my highlights…but I settled on these. They are my favorites considering the current climate I work in. But they may be different for you, Taylor Davidson is the author and he kind of puts up the “normal” analogy and then tells you what we should be looking at “instead”.
5. Solve your problems.
Instead: Solve their problems.Tom’s comment: How true. How many times are we looking to fix our issue or increase our revenue. That will last only as long as WE want it to. When we give up passion – the idea will wither.
6. Focus on the long-term.
Instead: Focus on the short-term.Tom’s comment: I cannot tell you how many times I’ve built a process/data manipulation/system which took longer to build than the project actually lasted. It gets you down.
7. Build prototypes, mockups and samples.
Instead: Start building in a format and medium as close to the finished product as possible, and iterate, iterate, iterate.Tom’s comment: Guilty as charged. :)
15. “We can build a successful business by capturing just X% of the market.”
Instead: Sell to one customer. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.Tom’s comment: How many times are decisions made for a huge group. If we went out and solved an issue for one mom, student or business owner – then repeated. How would that change the outcome?
19. Hire resumes.
Instead: Hire people: curiosity, passion, interpersonal skills and drive.Tom’s comment: I’m a gut feel kind of guy. So this is a no-brainer to me, the smartest person who cannot function on a team will ruin us all.
22. Meet to discuss.
Instead: Meet to decide.Tom’s comment: This hit me like a ton of bricks. Wow, how many times have I facilitated a meeting which resulted in discussion – when it could have been decision!
Please take a look at the full post, there are 19 more which are as good as these. If you have more – please share.
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Posted in business, innovation Tags: best-practice, business, fail, failing, failure, start-up 2 Comments »Yes – it is the Cal Poly Black Widow and they have tuned it to a mere 2700+ MPG. Wow. The best part is its not even a hybrid.
I’ve been tuned into This Week In Start-ups #TWIST since the beginning. But if you have not checked it out yet – @Jason is epic in a great talk he did at Penn State.
Check it out. And let #TWIST know they are killing it.
For a while now I have been ranting within the company I work for that we throw away too much data – with particular emphasis on throwing away the data we have about our customers.
As I listened to the TWIST #38 (This Week In Start Ups with Jason Calacanis) Jason absolutely nailed this point to the wall. He was warning publishers not to give apple complete control over their customer. By using the Apple store to deliver the media product – you are giving the customer away to Apple to nurture and harvest for ever and ever more. You have no idea who they are, where they live or other super important demographics.
Media companies have so many opportunities to harvest information about their customers – and many times i is just wasted. I’m not speaking of the kind of creepy, stalker type way of getting information – but the smart, collective, long-term collection like Amazon does.
Amazon knows so much about me and what I have bought from them – it is crazy. Crazy good!
Check out this screen shot of what Amazon has for me right now…all I did was go to amazon.com.
amazon.com
As you can see – it knows who I am right away and displays that at the top. I have outline a few sections with numbers sowe cna look at the dffernt things Amazon is doing.
That is pretty much it – but it explains exactly the point. The more you know about your customer - the better. This goes for car sale people, it goes for laundry detergent and it goes for media – and media is WAY behind.
And customer service can benefit here too – customers do not want to have to tell you everything about them every time they call in. They like that you know their information – as long as we’re not creepy about it.
It’s not too late. Media companies have the data people in place, in fact the circulation departments of many media companies have been working with some of this kind of data for a long time…we just need to start collecting the new data and then do something with it.
Posted in business, community, customer service, innovation, marketing Tags: @jason, amazon, customer data, Customer service, customers, jason calacanis, media, selling No Comments »
Dod Dodge is a very cool guy. He was ousted from Microsoft a few months back and has taken up residency at Google. He has a great post here in regards to goals and kicking butt.
Google sets impossible bodacious goals…and then achieves them. The engineering mindset of solving the impossible problem is part of the culture instilled in every group at Google.
This post is full of information – but this has to be my favorite quote:
Achieving 65% of the impossible is better than 100% of the ordinary
We have a goal program at my work – but it is nothing like this. Take the time and read this post – they set goals on 90 day time periods, it makes you think and achieve. Everyday.
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I first want to say – Pepsi’s idea to skip the super bowl and work the social angle is fantastic.
So this decision by Coke to follow is too little to late for me. Check it out at socialtimes:
Coca Cola is planning to run a social media campaign on Facebook during the Super Bowl, that would coincide with its advertisements in Cable TV, according to a web cast news conference by Coca Cola executives on Wednesday. This follows Pepsi who previously announced their intention to remove all SuperBowl ads and opt entirely for social media channels.
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Posted in business, marketing, wedia Tags: Add new tag, advertising, business, Coca Cola, Pepsi, Super Bowl Comments Off
