When most people think of free web analytics, they immediately think of Google Analytics. But there are many other free, innovative statistic tools available on the web. These tools measure everything from user behavior, to search engine traffic, to real-time visitor tracking, and more. The following ten products may provide valuable data when analyzing your website traffic.
Clicky is a clean, all-encompassing analytics package. The service is tailored for small websites and blogs. It's easy to implement and contains advanced features such as real-time visitor tracking and in-depth content analysis.
Enquisite is focused specifically on incoming search engine and PPC traffic. It provides in-depth statistics including page position, landing pages, and specific geographic data.
CrazyEgg provides the ability to track, evaluate, and optimize your site based on where your visitors click. Heatmaps and overlays quickly provide perspective into user behavior and habits.
Could micropayments be the key to monetizing YouTube? The New York Times has an interesting article today about the history and future of micropayments. "In December 2000, Clay Shirky, an adjunct professor in New York University’s interactive telecommunications program, wrote a manifesto that people still cite whenever someone suggests resurrecting the idea," writes the Times. "Micropayments will never work, he wrote, mainly because 'users hate them.'"
But, says the paper, micropayments are here, just not in the form we initially thought. Dot-com flameouts like BitPass, DigiCash, and Peppercoin all tried various methods of micropayments with the hope that content publishers would be able to charge a few cents to a few dollars for articles, reports, images, and other downloads. For the consumer, most of these schemes worked like a prepaid calling card -- load money into your account and buy stuff with credits.
Ars Technica is reporting that the National Football League in the US (i.e., football with your hands, not your feet), will begin streaming its games online this year. Subscribers of the league's $269 DirecTV satellite package will be able to pay an additional $99 to get games streamed to their PC. Running Windows. And Internet Explorer.
If that sounds like a bum deal to you, that's because it really is. Compared to Major League Baseball, a pioneer in online sports streaming, the NFL package sounds just awful. As a New York Yankees fan living outside of their local market, I rely on baseball's MLB.TV service to keep tabs on my favorite team. With MLB.TV for under $100 per season I can watch any out of market game streamed live, or watch full archives of completed games for the entire season, including edited/condensed games which show only the outcome of every at bat.
On the otherhand, because of the NFL's exclusive $700+ million per year deal with DirecTV (which runs through 2010) I have to be a subscriber to the satellite service to get access to out of market games. The cost is more than 3 times that of MLB.TV, and the service requires that I have a Windows machine and run IE. Yuck.
This poll is about the Web Office, our feature this week. We're looking to find out your current word processing habits - have they changed much now that online word processing is an option? Not wanting to sway the poll results, but currently I use browser-based word processors much more than desktop ones. I find it very handy to type in the browser and share documents with my workmates and others. How about you? Please participate in the poll below:
This week Read/WriteWeb will be featuring a series of posts about the Web Office. Let's start by summarizing what exactly is a Web Office. In a June post we mentioned that a Web Office suite should have, at the least, the following apps in it: email, calendar, word processing, spreadsheets, presentations. These are the core products of Microsoft Office, the dominant office suite package. You could also make a case for apps like contacts manager, task manager or even project management to be in the core products, but we'll keep things real simple. Here's how the main Web Office contenders shape up:
Tonight Bloglines is launching a new design at beta.bloglines.com, which includes a new personalizable Start Page, more views, and drag and drop Ajax functionality. I spoke to new Bloglines GM Eric Engleman about the makeover and tested the Beta Bloglines myself. My judgement below, plus I re-cap the history of Bloglines and how they dropped the ball after being acquired by Ask.com. Finally it looks like Bloglines is back on track, under Engleman. But first, let's review the new features.
Bloglines Beta is the first stage of "a complete redesign of the Bloglines service". The new features include a new personalizeable Start Page (featuring drag and drop functionality to add feeds); 3 feed reading views (Quick View with headlines only, 3-Pane View for an email-like interface, and Full View for "the classic Bloglines page layout, updated"); Drag-and-drop feed management using Ajax; and a new Unread System to manage what to keep and what to ignore. Also upgraded are the 'Add Feeds' process and the 'Full View' option.
The Ajax version of Yahoo Mail has finally had its beta tag removed and is now the default interface for all Yahoo Mail accounts. The new service includes two interesting real-time communication features:
1) Free text messaging to mobile phone numbers (but only available in the US, Canada, India and the Philippines);
2) Integrated instant messaging with Yahoo! Messenger and Windows Live Messenger.
Recently Vint Cerf, Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist at Google, has been throwing out warning signals about the Internet. He told the BBC that poor security and poor software design are undermining the reliability of the internet. In particular he mentioned Operating Systems and browsers:
"The biggest hole we have is with internet browsers, because we have too much access to the functionality of the operating system,‚Ä? he said, explaining that this made it easy to be infected by viruses and ‚ÄúTrojans‚Ä?, malicious programs that can be used to take control of a computer.
While Vint Cerf isn't worried these days about the Internet collapsing due to a lack of capacity in the physical infrastructure, he is concerned that "software bugs – such as the problems that brought the internet phone service Skype to its knees last week – coupled with poor security could cause big problems."
In another media report, from the Edinburgh International Television Festival, Vint Cerf warns that all the information currently stored on the web could be lost to future generations. He is quoted as saying:
Mark Cuban says the Internet is dead and boring, but Fred Wilson says it isn't for him! Who's right? Well, both of them. Let me quickly explain (before you get bored with what is actually a fairly pointless argument). Cuban wrote:
"Some people have tried to make the point that Web 2.0 is proof that the Internet is evolving. Actually it is the exact opposite. Web 2.0 is proof that the Internet has stopped evolving and stabilized as a platform. Its very very difficult to develop applications on a platform that is ever changing. Things stop working in that environment. Internet 1.0 wasn't the most stable development environment. To days Internet is stable specifically because its now boring.(easy to avoid browser and script differences excluded)"
(emphasis mine)
I mostly agree with Cuban on the emphasized point - web 2.0 has provided a stable platform. Indeed Alex Iskold coined a term to describe this, the Digestion Phase of the Internet. According to Alex this is "a period of time for us to reflect, to integrate, and to understand recent technologies and how they fit together."
The Attention Economy is a marketplace where consumers agree to receive services in exchange for their attention. Examples include personalized news, personalized search, alerts and recommendations to buy. Note that the Attention Economy is different from the tradional meaning of an economy, because it isn't about buying and selling - although ultimately those things may occur.
News feeds illustrate the point well, since they ask for consumers attention in exchange for the opportunity to show them advertising. Search engines also show ads (asking for consumers attention) in exchange for helping users find answers online (a service provided for free in exchange for that attention).
