There is quite a buzz at the eMetrics Summitin Washington, D.C. since Google Analytics™ just announced a new enterprise-class feature set that includes several enhancements such as: advanced segmentation, API, custom reports, richer data visualizations and integration with Google AdSense™.

Google Analytics is always compared to Omniture SiteCatalyst when it comes to customizing analytics reports and more specifically when it comes to traffic segmentation (among other features).This has been a part in which Omniture has had an edge in the past and where clients saw serious limitations in Google Analytics.

If you use Google AdSense on your website, you’ll be glad to learn that the enterprise class feature set will integrate your Google AdSense data into your Google Analytics account. This should translate into more in-depth analysis for you to increase your AdSense revenue.

Other features that are announced and that should give all web analysts much more flexibility and data analysis possibilities are access to the Google Analytics API as well as the new motion charts.Combining multi-dimensional analysis with Google Analytics usual user-friendly interface is definitely a feature that I want to see in action.

I’m very curious to try these new features, I’ll keep you posted as soon as the beta starts and we have the chance to play around with them. In the meantime, go to Google Analytic’s blog to read the full press release.

As seen on The Domain September 22 2008.
The State of Kentucky issued a seizure order on September 18 ordering 141 domains to be taken from their registrants.
http://www.thedomains.com/wp-content/order-of-seizure-of-domain-names.pdf

Not all of these sites are in use, but some are such as truepoker.com. This action by the state of Kentucky is tantamount to stealing these URL’s from their rightful owners. I’m sure Truepoker.com paid for their domain and does a good business allowing consenting adults all over the world to play poker in the comfort of their homes. How does a US state rationalize seizing domain names to stop people from gambling? What’s next? Once they have seized all the offending names registered with US registrars, will they move of shore and target URL’s registered overseas? Will they start restricting access to sites with content they deem offensive, controversial or, even better, the “catch all category”; a threat to national security? As far as I’m concerned governments have to stay away from the web and not stand in the way of free flowing information. If online gambling is illegal in your state (aka don’t know how to tax it) then make it hard for your citizenry to collect their winnings. Don’t seize the domain and deprive the rest of the world of an activity that may or may not be illegal in their jurisdiction.

Why is it so hard to make clients understand that building a site is like building a home? I have yet to be in the online industry for a long time but I’m already noticing frightening patterns. My background is science and my forte is psychology, therefore behaviour is what I observe and logic is how I explain what I see. Lately I have been observing the online marketing industry since I’m smack in the middle of Montreal’s Cité des multimédias. WOW everyone is fighting for a spot in the sunlight!
Now my first observation is that there are so many companies in identity crisis mode. My only concern (not true, I have many concerns), more like my main concern is that instead of truly defining their identity; companies are gravitating towards the do-it-all identity. It’s like the Wal-Mart syndrome… This trend is in part caused by clients and in part caused by the companies.
My second observation is that so many are talking REBRANDING… Companies change their names in the hopes that they can offer more services under a new brand and become an “Agency”. Being a specialist is not enough anymore in the online marketing world; companies must be able to answer every marketing need, online and offline, of their clients. What ever happen to the concept of hiring a specialist? Why do people believe so much in the one-stop-shop philosophy where you get everything at low prices AND low quality?
When building a house, a good house, we assign the electrician to do electricity work. The plumber is in charge of plumbing. The insulation is done by experts as well. And before we even begin the whole process we hire a designer to create and design a beautiful but PRATICAL home for its inhabitants. Now the need for many experts requires one person to organize, manage and assign all these people to the right jobs at the right time. Hence the need to hire a GENERAL CONTRACTOR!
Now why (OH WHY) is this amazing logic not being applied to websites? From my point of view, building a website is like building a house. Each stage of the website requires experts and the entire project should be overseen by a GENERAL CONTRACTOR… (Tadaaaa!)
A website is a bridge into your potential customer’s life. It is also the place where loyal and new customers will converge. It serves more than one simple purpose, and can accomplish more than a sale of one or many products. Websites are now the online voice of a company. A strategy is necessary in its creation. A design has to answer to this strategy. And the inner workings of the site must represent the design, the strategy and the company in a way that is appealing to the target customer as well as grabbing to new users. Now don’t tell me you want that strategy to be elaborated by the designer of the site! Everyone has its expertise…
We truly need is for companies to be more transparent and allow their expertise to shine through without trying to mask it under a do-it-all mission. Clients should hire the proper experts for all stages of the build. That way, instead of diluting our strengths in our Wal-Mart service offers, we will strive to be the BEST in order to make the cut when the general contractor is hired to choose the experts. The online knowledge is growing too quickly for do-it-all companies to keep up with a selective group of true experts…
Therefore, my ultimate question is who will DARE to be excellent?

Just coming back from SES Toronto. It’s always nice to have the chance to talk in person with people that I rarely see! There were lots of interesting sessions but the one that I was most curious about was measuring success in (careful, buzzword coming…) a 2.0 world.

It was turning out to be a roundtable with lots of ideas and concepts being thrown around when all of a sudden, someone from the audience came up with an interesting comment to the panel: “so, it’s already been 40 minutes and we have yet to learn how to measure success of 2.0 initiatives; could you please give concrete examples?”.

The panel didn’t seem to know how to react because really, there are no standards in the industry yet and each website is different, a one-size-fits-all answer is out of the question. You have to measure your initiative according to what matters to your business. What are you trying to accomplish? Are you trying to get users to register? To post comments? To upload content? Stick with the basics, there are lots of ways to measure your initiatives, but stick to what really matters in your decision making. Agreed, easier said than done, it is easy to throw floods of data on a spreadsheet that your boss will see, not really pay attention to and have the impression that you really know what’s going on. But choosing just two or three KPIs will most likely help you get everyone in the chain of command clear on what’s being measured, how it is being measured and how it is going to be actionable. This is even better! You’ll see that your boss and your colleagues will start to become more educated, more informed and more interested in the actionable data you can feed them with.

In the end, 2.0 or not, it remains about being able to provide actionable data.

This post is indeed my first one ) It’s been floating in my head for a while… The title, Growing Pains of Facebook, has been haunting my thoughts for a couple weeks. I’ve been working on Facebook for some of my clients for several months and I had a tonne of comments (negative and positive) to share. What better way than to simply blog about it!

The emergence of a new platform, in any field, is cause for celebration. To me it represents growth, evolution, thirst for change and most importantly it is NEW. For all the ones who had been proclaiming that web 2.0 was here, it was a complete confirmation. Social Media is still defining itself but key players are identifying themselves and evolving. Facebook took off like a rocket and everyone was holding on to it, trying to be part of its explosion. We can definitely thank students for their ability to gravitate towards trends quickly and for their huge (not always meaningful) networks.

With change come difficulties ). As I began to use Facebook to advertise my clients I was very pleased to discover the low CPCs but very frustrated by the interface. But since money talks ) I keep buying ads because clients are pleased with the results (so was I) even though the CTRs are very low. Often enough, I login and notice new improvements to the Ad Manager interface. Reporting is now much easier but still at a very basic level. Billing still requires a calculator since the interface does not allow a quick isolation of data. The possibility of an advertiser account does not exist which forces us to mix our personal profiles with work. (A company profile for the purpose of advertising cannot be created, trust me, mine was rudely disabled with no possibility of recuperating data) But the possibility of targeting profiles by interests was my favourite feature of all. Unfortunately CPCs have sky rocketed lately and the benefits of Facebook ads have to be re-evaluated.

Since the flow of new applications within this social network is going strong we can deduce that Facebook will easily continue to offer new innovative ways to reach and market to a precisely targeted audience. From Bumper Stickers to Snowball Fights and passing through so many…there’s an infinite amount of possibilities within this social network. Another great advantage of the emergence of a new platform; it promotes the creation of other similar yet different platforms like Twitter, Linkedin, Plurk and more…much more! So maybe I shouldn’t call it the growing pains but more something like The Growing Delights of Facebook )