Finally, Twitter has become usable online via your mobile. Visiting http://m.twitter.com lets you see the latest rants by your Twitter friends. I’m surprised this wasn’t available from the start, but better late that never.
I think it’d be even better if the non-mobile-specific Twitter website used your browser agent to gauge which version to present you with. Wouldn’t that make more sense?
[Via Crunchgear]
There are tons of stats packages out there, but if all you’re looking for is a quick peek at your most popular blog posts, referrers, outbound clicks or search engine terms, they’re sometimes a bit heavy.
WordPress.com has some great basic snapshot stats, which were missing from the self-hosted WordPress.org install. Finally , Automattic has made them available for WordPress.org users as well.
I’ve used Google Analytics, AWStats, CrazyEgg and Webalizer, each for a different blog-related purpose, but this integrated Dashboard stats package is bound to very quickly become the one I rely on most for quick stats.
I’m considering using Mint in the near future for another project, but if anyone has suggestions, recommendations or warnings against any stats package, do let me know!
Which type of stats do you find most accurate: log analysis tools like AWStats or Javascript-based scripts like Google Analytics? Or both to complement/complete each other??
Looking at my RSS feeds last night, I had a count of how many of my “Marketing Favourites” folder were full feeds and how many were just excerpts. As it turns out, only two of my top 15 feeds are using excerpts in their feeds, one of which “doesn’t really count” because it’s really only linking to the post accompanying a podcast.
I came across Feedburner’s Rick Klau’s comment about partial feeds. He says:
First of all, I think the primary justification often given for partial feeds – that it will drive higher clickthroughs back to the publisher’s site – is off-base. As people subscribe to feeds, they subscribe to more feeds. And that means they’re consuming more content, which means that each click out of the feed reader is taking the reader away from more content. In other words, feed reading is consumption-oriented, not transactionally focused. We’ve seen no evidence that excerpts on their own drive higher clickthroughs.
So in summary, partial feed = greedy site owner and no real benefits to the readers.
RSS feeds have been created to make it easier to plow through the mountains of information we want to assimilate every day, and partial feeds are a significant hurdle to that. If 13 of my 15 favourite feeds are full feeds and only two use excerpts, is it possible that, unconsciously, that factor played a role in my decision to “upgrade” these feeds from the enormous Marketing folder to the Marketing Favourites one?
By knowing I wouldn’t have to waste time clicking through to their site and would be able to read the posts while away from an Internet connection or during the routinely web downtime we’re getting in the office these days, these full feeds have made themselves more valuable.
David Churbuck points out that full feeds are also beneficial to Chinese readers, who may be able to read the RSS excerpt but not read the full entry on wordpress.com, for example.
What gets me even more than people posting excerpts only, forcing you to get out of your RSS reader (or at least in the case of NNW, open a new tab), is those who stick advertising at the bottom of their excerpt. Advertising in my feeds feels dirty.
But then, this happens in feeds that belong to companies unscrupulous enough to put so many animated ads within their actual website that it makes my brand new Intel Mac’s fans rev up (and my 16 months old Powerbook hit 100%), and makes me go cross-eyed while trying to read the site’s actual content. But hrmm… that’s one for another post though.
Am I missing any perfectly justifiable reasons to use excerpts?
[Via The Wrong Advices]
A few worthy business-oriented reads for today:
Have a good Easter weekend!
Just a quickie to highlight the second April Fool’s joke, Google TiSP, its new FREE in-home wireless broadband service. Easy, user-friendly system! 😉
Lately, I’ve been getting a bit sick of staring at a screen all day. Email in, email out, do this, do that. Blergh!
But looks like Google has solved my problem, again! Gmail Paper is a new service, just arrived to the UK after some US trials, which allows you to request paper copies of your emails. These are delivered in 2-4 business days, leaving you the alternative of reading all your mail on paper.
And for those who are concerned about the environment, you needn’t worry, they thought of everything. “Gmail Paper is made out of 96% post-consumer organic soybean sputum, and thus, actually helps the environment. For every Gmail Paper we produce, the environment gets incrementally healthier.”
When I was a kid, I used to get this feeling all the time. This floating feeling that life’s great, like you could explode if it gets any better. As grownups, we’re busy, stressed, worried over all sorts of trivial and not-so-trivial stuff, and we rarely, if ever, get that floaty feeling anymore.
However, in the past week or two, a number of positive things have happened, big and small, which have just kept me in that great mood. Some are as simple as losing a couple of pounds after feeling really bloated for ages, having something surprisingly tasty for lunch and the weather being as lovely as it was on Monday and Tuesday (even though it’s now rubbish).
On Tuesday, an article I wrote on the Seven Deadly Sins of Email Marketing Management was published on Digital Web. Then yesterday, like the cherry on the sundae, it featured on the Campaign Monitor blog. (Cheers for the mention, Dave!)
There have been a few other fortuitous events, which I’m sure I’ll be able to get into at a later date, but generally, it’s the small things that are keeping me in such a fab mood.
Can you cope without your computer for one day?
That’s the question Shutdownday.org is asking. They are encouraging everyone to switch off for 24 hours, on the 24th March 2007, and so far 13% are already admitting they cannot go without their computer on Saturday.
I have yet to tick the red or grey box – I’d like to spend the day away from the computer, but as it’s my bread and butter, we’ll just have to see!
Going online daily to read the news, check the weather, catch up with people and to blog has been part of my life for the best of 13 or 14 years now, and I could probably count the number of days I haven’t used a computer in all those years on a few hands. There’s no denying it, it’s an integral part of my life.
So more power to you if you can take part in Saturday’s Shutdown Day, but in my case, a no-technology day needs to be planned ahead to get work and personal projects out of the way first.
Sad unh?
Recently, I’ve been falling in love with inanimate objects. I self-diagnosed I had a problem when I found myself talking to said objects while home alone. Either it’s cabin-fever from having spent the past few days in the house or I’m just losing my marbles. (Generous reward if marbles are returned)
First gadget I’m in love with is my new Senseo coffee machine. I bought it from Amazon about a month ago, and literally picked the cheapest single-serve coffee machine I could find.
In the past, my dilemma with making coffee at home was that, with Andrew not being a coffee drinker, it was difficult to find the right coffee maker. Normal filter coffee machines made too many cups at once, Bodum coffee makers were out of the question because of the amount of grinds at the bottom of my cup (some people disagree on this one, and it’s possible I’ve been doing it wrong all along, but I just don’t like the one-person Bodum), and we live in a small town with no Starbucks or coffee shop within any reasonable distance (thank god, or I’d be very broke).
So I thought for £45 (doh, it’s even cheaper now, it’s down to £35!), it wasn’t a great loss if it turned out to be rubbish. I only tend to have one cup of coffee a day, and only in the morning, so after settling myself down for a day working from home, I made my first cup. And I have to say, it makes great coffee, and takes no time at all.
Before seeing the pods, I was somewhat concerned of the waste I’d be causing, but it turns out that the pods are nothing more than a paper filter, wrapped around pre-ground coffee. While snooping around SingleServeCoffee, I heard about the Ecopad, which was presented as both a more environmentally-friendly solution and a way to use ANY coffee type you liked instead of the few that are offered in pod form. Promptly ordered two Ecopads, but have yet to use them, as I’m still using up the pre-made pods I ordered on CafeCo (Great site, but they forgot to include the little coffee bean stressball in my order!)
I haven’t tried very many coffee machines, but based on my experience, not only is this coffee very drinkable (and strong!), it’s also easy to make and the machine is easy to clean – Just press both cup size buttons at the same time and let it run a water cycle through. So highly recommended for the casual coffee drinkers who might like to cut down on the share of their salary they donate daily to Starbucks.
The second gadget I’m in lurve with these days is Asimo. I think I even had a dream where I was running in a field of flowers holding hands with my best friend Asimo… Ok maybe I should’ve kept that to myself. That’s ok, AWESOM-O-lovers will understand me. 😉
This one stretches beyond just Asimo, though. I’ve been talking to Keira, my little Nabaztag/tag bunny, and she’s been responding. She even sang me “Au pays de Candy” last weekend, and my family knows how much this means to me (put that video online and I’ll have to kill you!).
Mmmmkay, I’ve probably spent more time with non-sentient, robotic little beings this week than I have with real people, and it’s sending me loopy. So of course, I’ll communicate this via my blog, while listening to music via the Airport Express, then Twitter some work colleagues who are at SxSW and check the latest YouTube videos I’m subscribed to…
Right, I think I need to get away from technology, go live in the woods, do some camping and hunt for my own food for a while.
that canadian girl 