wheresitworking?

Happy Holidays: from Google, but for Facebook

Happy Holidays everyone. I just wanted to extend a quick holiday greeting.  I’m going to borrow the holiday greeting image from Google Analytics, because I like it so much. It is from Google Analytics’ Happy Holidays post to everyone.

Biggest takeaway from the 2009 holiday season? For me it is the fact that according to Hitwise, Facebook was the number one most visited site on the web on Christmas day. Phenomenal when you take into account the incident in Detroit, which presumably drove loads of traffic to Google and the major news sites.

What does Facebook’s dominance mean? Well, nothing that we didn’t know already, but perhaps a slap in the face for some media providers, that rather than focusing on your own sites, maybe looking for creative ways to integrate into your audience member’s Facebook visits is where the focus should be.

Just some food for thought; I’d gladly write a longer post but we’re scrambling to finish up year-end activities at SwellPath before the first monthly reporting session of the new year hits. Enjoy the rest of 2009 everyone and best wishes for a wonderfully successful 2010.

Tags: Christmas web traffic, Facebook, Google Analytics

Real-Time Web Analytics Solutions

I wrote a post yesterday for the SwellPath Blog on 3 real-time web analytics solutions that are, if nothing else, very fun to use and tinker with. Woopra, Clicky, and chartbeat are the three I talked about. If you have any others you use that you’d recommend, I’d love to hear about them.

Tags: chartbeat, Clicky, Woopra

Free Expedited Holiday Shipping Expected

I was a little surprised by this email I received from Patagonia today. Free two-day shipping on all orders over $100, through December 22nd. Of course, it’s a standard now that you can get your last minute shopping done and get a free shipping upgrade with larger online retailers. So why is the subject of this email “Free 2-Day Shipping – Our Gift to You”? I would guess that throwing in some free stickers, a free $2 donation to an environmental non-profit, free socks, something else – would resonate much more with most of Patagonia’s customers. I would guess that most of them are savvy enough to know that free two-day is standard fare with most retailers and brands, and it doesn’t have as much of an impact on the open or clickthrough rates as a subject like “Free 2-Day Shipping and Free Donations” or even just “Free 2-Day Shipping Begins Today”.

None-the-less, Patagonia is on it with the promotion, and right on target with timing for the last minute dash for consumers cash.

Tags: free shipping, holiday shopping, Patagonia

Google Chrome for Mac Review

I’ve been using Chrome for Mac for a couple months now, starting with the developer release. Now that the browser is officially in beta, it is more easily accessible by the masses. Just as important, extensions (i.e. plugins) are flourishing for PCs, and will be available for Macs soon. So, I figured I’d give my $0.02 on Chrome.

Reasons to Use Chrome

I’ve never been a big Safari user; I won’t go into why, because I can’t articulate it completely. Likewise, I haven’t spent time getting comfortable with Opera; though I feel I may be missing out there. Essentially my dependence on plugins for analytics and SEO related tasks essentially forces me to use Firefox for most of my “at-work” browsing.  All these plugins have slowed Firefox though, and with it’s core resource needs, it now takes up a large chunk of my MacBook’s RAM. At the same time, Firefox seems more sluggish now, making me less efficient. So when the Chrome developer version became available for Mac, I decided to give it a whirl, knowing that some of the key plugins I use in Firefox would likely become available as extensions for Chrome soon. But I started out just using it for some key sites that I stay logged into all day: Salesforce, Google Analytics, and EasyProjects.net (our current time tracking and project management solution at SwellPath).

First Impressions of Chrome

I had given Chrome a test drive when it came out for PCs in 2008, but I hadn’t spent “intimate” time with the browser. Immediately when I started using Chrome, I felt that it was leaner and faster than Firefox; and it is. Unfortunately, some of the “fat” from Firefox is missed, namely those plugins and the convenience they provide. But otherwise, Chrome fits the bill, especially for these web apps that I just keep open all day.

The Future of Firefox

The future of Firefox, in my universe, isn’t in jeopardy. I’m not going to abandon the application I’ve spent a ridiculously large percentage of my adult life using, but, I am going to continue to use Chrome for many of my daily tasks. Right now, I see Firefox as being my tool for development, analysis, and SEO related needs. Using Firebug, HTTPFox and the SEM related plugins I use seems more natural in Firefox. But I do see Chrome taking over for Gmail (as soon as the Wisestamp extension is available), daily browsing (as soon as Foxmarks, Delicious, and Diigo extensions are available), and general searching. It has been acknowledged that Google is focused on (obsessed even) with speed, and Chrome is a major part of that, and I like that, because speed is necessary in our industry these days. So give Chrome a try if you haven’t already, I think you’ll like what you find.

Tags: Chrome, extensions, Mac

Geolocation Coming to Facebook?

It’s funny to look back on this post I wrote just 8 months ago, about location based social networks and Google’s launch of Latitude. I didn’t even mention Loopt in the post, though at one point during late spring through summer Loopt looked poised to be a leader in the space.

But a fickle bunch we social networkers are. During summer, foursquare became the hottest way to tell your friends that you were having lunch somewhere. At least among the more geeky, or trendy, or connected, people I follow and communicate with. Meanwhile, Twitter has just rolled out geolocation through their API.

Jason Kincaid wrote a great post yesterday on how Facebook is poised to rollout and dominate geolocation. While I agree with him for the most part, it is hard to consider what will become of Loopt, foursquare, Gowalla (another up-and-comer with seemingly significant momentum), Brightkite (relative old-timer in the space), or the other networks that have sprung up and have some traction. Will their users abandon them for the major networks, or will they be acquired by the bigger players for their customer user bases and individually unique features? Obviously it will be a combination of these things, but I’m guessing a lot more of the former than the latter.

One final thought: what is Google doing with Latitude? Definitely not sitting still; just recently geohistory and some other new Latitude features were pushed out. Seems like with Google’s massive penetration in the mobile phone space, and their recent push of Google Profiles and various other networking components, they are an impending giant in this space.

Tags: brightkite, foursquare, geohistory, Google Latitude, Loopt