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.
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 »
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 OffThis is brilliant. Just like many of the video game makers ahve been doing for a while.
This patent, which was originally filed on July 7, 2008, describes a new system for promoting ads in online mapping applications. In this patent, Google describes // <
Posted in innovation, marketing, technology, wedia Tags: Add new tag, advertising, Billboard, Google Comments Off
When I first read this – I did at least one double take. Say what – like when was the last time Pepsi told the Super Bowl – “we’ll pass, but thanks”
“will bypass the big game for the first time in 23 years”
PBT Consulting
Well – will this be a great move or great blunder? It sounds like they are going social – via project called the pepsi refresh project, and it looks to be a very interesting move.
The idea (from the Pepsi site) is absolutely awesome. In fact, I proposed a similar project to the company I work for a year ago, on a much smaller scale. They are basically going to take the super bowl ad money and let people use the money for grants and projects and then let people also vote on them.
OK – who doesn’t think this is the best idea ever. We all watch these million dollar ads and think – wow, what would I do with the money if I had that – surely not spend it on one of these ads. Now you have that voice.
Along with keeping the day-to-day rolling in webdev this week, my task is to test out a couple of web classified apps. We’re looking to test drive two methods – one called geodesic and then drop a couple of WordPress themes too.
The hard part will be figuring out how much is “enough” to get us to the next step in the game. We get a lot of heat in WebDev for not building out entire sites as requested. The hard part is trying to convince our internal clients they don’t need the Cadillac quite yet and we have a nice Honda ready and waiting.
So this will be a good test for both WebDev and our internal clients to see if we can meet in the middle.
Challenges:
Suggestions:
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Posted in Featured Post, marketing, new media, technology, web concepts, wordpress Tags: classified, craigslist, ebay, wordpress Comments OffIt’s funny, the newspaper I work for is trying hard – but spinning its tires a lot. We’ve gone from build a “super blog” network, to atomizing all content into a distribution engine to looking for the “million dollar idea”. It’s crazy, but it is possible to make a million with a blog.
Here is a quote from a post which outlines the process:
that blog is read by over 3 million readers a month and is quickly paying my mortgage – in fact in November it generated more than $100,000, most of that in a week
WOW. Unreal? Not really. But here is what I left out:
Today, 3 and a half years later, that blog is read by over 3 million readers a month and is quickly paying my mortgage – in fact in November it generated more than $100,000, most of that in a week after launching a Portrait Photography Tips E-book.
See, it’s not the fact that a million dollar idea/or blog is not possible. It’s the how to do it part we miss.
We need good content, we need to nuture the people who come, we need to let those people become a part of the site and you have to hustle.
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Posted in innovation, marketing, new media, wedia Tags: blogs, million dollar idea, newspaper Comments Off
The paywall discussion is in full force at my job (Gazette Communications) and my buddy and I were discussing the idea of adding a paywall to our electronic edition yesterday at lunch. Funny – as the exact same thing we were talking about was pointed to in this Boing-Boing post:
The critical point here is that advertising is still what makes money for news, even when there’s a cover charge. Paywalls aren’t just sold to readers. They must be sold to advertisers. Paid walls make the eyeballs behind them much more valuable.
It will just be very interesting to see how long the paywall phenomenon lasts – i may well be a short term solution, but the problem is a super long term one.
To succeed with paywalls, then, publishers need not only an established monopoly on something valuable (local news, scoops, reporting quality) but also a plan to translate that into advertiser interest. Paywalls alone, unless they are ridiculously expensive, just won’t be enough.
Either way – I’m sure we’ll do it. I wish we wouldn’t, I’m not sure we’ve looked at the complete array of options objectively yet. Wish us well. 
Why paywalls won’t help most big newspapers
Posted in Featured Post, business, marketing, new media Tags: Boing Boing, business, newspapers, paywall 2 Comments »
