These days, I find myself using Twitter more and more to stay informed. By following a handful of thought leaders, tech luminaries, celebrities and friends, I get a steady stream of news, links to content around the web, opinions and even conversations. But as Twitter grows in popularity, it is becoming increasingly difficult to filter out some of the noise.
Tweetdeck is a step in the right direction for removing the clutter unavoidable in this microblogging platform. It allows you to create groups and set up search notifications on any given topic. Each filter can be viewed in a separate column. Yet it does not nothing to eliminate noise – that is, tweets that don’t interest me.
So here is my idea. Why not add a social networking component to Twitter, like Digg or Reddit do for content? Tweets could be voted up or down and tagged as uninformative if they do not contribute to the conversation. An application like Tweetdeck could offer filters for only the highest ranked tweets from all my followers. Or I could run a search for only quality tweets (as decided by the Twitterati) from a particular topic.
I realize that the beauty of Twitter is in its simplicity, but the success of Tweetdeck clearly demonstrates that there is a market for more granular control. What do you think?
There is an interesting article over on Sitepoint and originally broken by Michael VanDeMar about recent tests Google has been conducting to offer AJAX search instead of the standard HTML search it currently offers. Essentially, AJAX is supposed to improve the user experience by speeding up search. Besides some Firefox plugins possibly no longer working, there didn’t appear to be any major reasons to be concerned. However, the implications for web analytics tracking tools, it turns out, could be significant. From VanDeMar:
Every single analytics package that currently exists, at least as far as being able to track what keywords were searched on to find your site in Google, would no longer function correctly.
The reason, VanDeMar goes on to explain, is that search URLs in this test include a hash sign (#) which is then followed by the search parameters. Since browsers do not include anything after the hash sign in the referrer string, this information would not be sent to the tracking servers. Every visitor coming from a Google search, therefore, would appear to be coming directly from Google.com without search term information.
Web Analytics providers will be understandably upset if these developments are true. Search engine traffic is a huge part of any site’s traffic so losing detailed referral information would be critical to say the least.
Even if this test is rolled out and the implications turn out to be a problem, I am sure the web analytics community and Google will make nice and come up with a solution. And, while I doubt that Google is intentionally being evil, it is once again a reminder how even routine tests by the internet giant can have huge ramifications throughout the industry.
I am proud to release a white paper today together with my colleague Markus Hällgren from the Umeå School of Business and Economics. Despite the abundance of high quality white papers, blogs and books on web analytics available today, we continue to observe web analytics implementations that fall short of expectations. This paper is largely a result of our observations with web analytics implementations and project management consulting. It is our sincere hope that this paper will contribute to the industry and help take web analytics to the level where it can truly add value to organizations.
Download the paper now!
It has never been more important than now to maintain a personal connection with as many of your customers as possible.
Getsatisfaction.com is one way to maintain a close connection to the customer. This service enables companies to get direct feedback from customers in an honest and transparent manner. It provides a two-way communication platform between companies and their customers by allowing both sides to ask and answer questions. By creating these transparent conversations, customers can get help from company representatives or from the community, taking advantage of some of the company’s most knowledgeable and loyal customers.
From the site:
Get Satisfaction is a direct connection between people and companies that fosters problem-solving, promotes sharing, and builds up relationships. Thousands of companies use this neutral space to support customers, exchange ideas, and get feedback about their products and services. Get Satisfaction is open, transparent, and free. You’re free to ask, free to answer, and free to start a new conversation. Everyone is invited and encouraged to participate: companies, employees, customers — anyone with an opinion, an answer, or something to say.
The feedback widget is a great feature to integrate on your company site. It allows visitors to leave instantaneous feedback – an idea, a problem, a question or praise. Feedback is then tracked on your company profile page. This widget is an easy, unobtrusive way to get feedback from customers. Moreover, it personalizes the browsing experience by giving all visitors the ability to share their voices.
Getsatisfaction is especially compelling given the open and transparent nature of the Web. Hiding mistakes or handling decisions poorly can quickly turn into a PR disaster. Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV recently mentioned the importance of reacting quickly, transparently and honestly to PR problems in a video blog post after his site, Corkd was hacked. Getsatisfaction.com is an excellent tool to make sure such unpleasant situations are handled properly and ensuring customers are satisfied.
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