I’ve been using Outbrain on my blog for a few weeks and I’ve been generally very happy with it. It is well integrated, visually attractive, and provides a real value in the ability to see reader’s ratings of my posts. It also usually does a pretty good job at making recommendations, but as I was replying to a comment on a post about the iPhone, I noticed the following recommendations.
WTF? Real Muscle Online? I’m not sure I get how that is likely to apply...
So I'm reading a back post from Joel on Software and I stumble upon a quote from Dave Winer that I believe (without any reservation) hits the nail on the head.
So when I say "inch by inch" -- that's what I mean. To create a usable piece of software, you have to fight for every fix, every feature, every little accommodation that will get one more person up the curve. There are no shortcuts. Luck is involved, but you don't win by being lucky, it happens because you fought for every inch.
Once you know the truth of the above, there almost nothing more depressing than watching software get created by people who aren't fighting for every inch.
Bravo!
When I opened Writer at home tonight- this lovely site greeted me-
It's awesome to see the Typepad Writer integration. Thanks Typepad!
Google Analytics launched today, and one of the interesting question that occurred to me right away was whether I should use this to track traffic to this blog (not that there is a lot to track just yet). I also run the website for Onfolio, so it occurred to me to give it a try there as well, but I'm a little too conservative to just dump new analytics at our site. Has anyone else out there started using Google Analytics for a site that is something larger than a hobby?
Google took the wrapper off Analytics today. It is a rebranding of their Urchin acquisition from earlier this year.
It works in much the same way as MeasureMap - using it requires the addition of javascript into a couple of files on your blog. It has deep integration into Adwords as well.
Google Analytics is mostly free (up to 5 million page views per month), or completely free if you are an adwords user.
Registration for Analytics is currently suspended but I’ll be doing a full side by side review against Measure Map in the next day or two. The screen shot provided by Google (to left) is encouraging.
One thing I’d like to understand is whether Google Analytics takes a holistic approach to blog analytics like Measure Map does, or whether it is a more generic application for measuring general website statistics. Measure Map is awesome at monitoring traffic at the post and comment level and has used flash and Ajax integration in a very intelligent way.
More on the Meme.
Tags: google, googleanalytics, measuremap, adaptivepath, techcrunch, web2.0, web+2.0, analytics
Google Analytics Swings at Measure Map
Originally Posted on 11/14/2005 2:53 PM
by Michael Arrington
TechCrunch
