Showing posts with label Blogging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blogging. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Now blogging at Cardinal Path

After nearly 10 years and over 500 posts you will notice some silence at blog.immeria.net as I move things over to cardinalpath.com/blog.


The older posts will remain here, but please head over Cardinal Path to read my latest posts.

In your opinion, what's the right strategy in such a case? Please vote & comment.

What should I do about this blog?
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Thursday, September 24, 2009

PostRank Analytics

Couple of days ago I was solicited to take a look at a new offering by PostRank called... PostRank Analytics!

The service is pretty clever and offers insight into your blog performance by merging social media measurement and quantitative data. The graph bellow shows an overview with timeline, indicators when you posted on your blog, and overall stats. Clicking on one of the post indicator leads to a more detailed report.

Learning how your content is performing with your audiences, improving your blogging, and developing relationships with your readers should be as important to you as to larger media outlets. But web analytics itself, such as Google Analytics, isn't adressing very well the social media aspect of your blog performance.

This detailed report shows individual posts with indication about the relative PostRank Engagement index, page views, time on page, and number of mentions in several social media outlets such as Twitter, Digg, Delicious, Reddit, etc. For individual posts, you also get all Twitter mentions.


Basically, PostRank Analytics allow you to better identify when, where, and how your audiences are engaging with your content, not only in the last week or month, but also today. It will help you find readers on all the important social hubs where they consume, organize and share content. You can not only see overviews of your audience engagement activity, you also see it as it happens, enabling better connection for timely conversation.

My take

A very interesting service worth giving a try. With so many data sources and different ways to look into social media and general web analytics data, PostRank Analytics provide an easy to use and pretty complete picture. Even if only $9/month, my worry is the number of clients willing to pay for a service that gathers data readily available for free from different sources, and particularly when so many bloggers are relying on a collection of free tools. Still, the insight and visualization is pretty useful, and serious bloggers should at least give it a try for a month (for free!).
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Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Web Analytics Conversations: an experiment

As an involved volunteer for the Web Analytics Association, I've been maintaining the official WAA Search Engine and several widgets you can use on your own site. I also published a couple versions of the Web Analytics Conversations, a list of dozens of web analytics related blogs grouped into one master RSS feed. New blogers around the world are submitting their blogs for inclusion in this growing list.

But I had another pet project in mind...

Web Analytics Conversations v2.0!

Something annoyed me in the fact of simply listing blogs. How can we easily identify top blogs? What IS a top blog anyway? Is it because of authority? Is it keeping it fresh and publishing often? What about quality of the posts?

I've been working on a mashup of Technorati, Google Blog Search and other sources of information to create a dynamic tool that shows top web analytics blogs by Authority, Freshness and Activity. It's not ready for prime time yet, but click on the image below for a larger view.


As you see, it's dead easy to see the top authorities in the field of web analytics, and what they are talking about. Base on the snapshot above, what else would you expect to see in this tool? But first, would you find it useful and use it?

Defining an Attention or Engagement metric for blogs

I'm a huge fan of the concept of Attention Economy, and on the other end, "engagement" is a hot topic in web analytics. The base metrics are:
  • Authority: Technorati's authority estimate, based on number of inbound links over the past 6 months,
  • Freshness: or Recency, how long ago the blog was updated,
  • Activity: How many posts in the last 30 days
If you've done your Marketing 101, you will quickly see those metrics are very close to RFM (Recency, Frequency and Monetary value), the later being replaced by Authority.

The tool shows the blog title, description, author and blog picture, recent posts and allows to sort by any of the 3 metrics.

Now, how would you calculate an engagement metric? What's your pick:

a) I would take the sum of  relative % for each metric (this would be close to an RFM scoring)
b) I would use a weighting factor because one metric is more important than the other
c) I would calculate it in a totally different way
c) It's impossible to automate an engagement metric, you're crazy!

I would love to hear your feedback about the sneak preview and how you would like to see the ranking.
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Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Celebrating immeria.net and life in general

Today, June 4th, 2008

I've been working for 21 years, actively involved in the Internet and Web development for 15 years. Been blogging for over 5 years and posted over 300 messages.

I found this morning that I now have over 500 subscribers to this blog, plus close to a hundred to the web analytics conversations. Although my roots in analytics might date back to the days when I was an Oracle database administrator, or when I was looking at CERN HTTP logs, the graph below clearly show when I started to blog more seriously about web analytics.

Retrospective

  • December 2007: Officially became web analytics freelance and entrepreneur while pursuing an eBusiness MBA. Of course there are some constraints, some hard work and some stress, but I've been enjoying the past 6 months like a child in a toy store.
  • October 2002: First blog post, in French, where I welcome hypothetical readers and explain what is a "blog".
  • October 1994: After explaining why it was so important to have a web presence and literally building the first site over nights and week ends, Softimage, then a subsidiary of Microsoft, launched a first website (this version comes from a snapshot in 1997, when I was part of a team dedicated to the web).
  • August 1994: First proof of a website I built for an R&D project at Hydro-Quebec
  • June 1993: My first archeological presence on the net (a bit scary to still find it!). A message about system administration on SunOS machines.
See my full profile on LinkedIn.
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Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Web analytics bloggers: what's you WA-pon?

While preparing for my WASP presentation at the upcoming eMetrics Industry Insight I did a bunch of analysis for various vertical and regions.

Now that MeasureMap is going to be available right off Blogger, I thought it would be cool to look at what web analytics bloggers are using. Microsoft would call it "eat your own dog food". No surprise, Google Analytics dominates, but WASP goes way beyond this simple fact. Read on...

Tools by Type

  • 85% of the web analytics blogs are using at least one tool, and most of us are using more than one (63%)! But what are the 15% others doing?
  • The 25% of those using Panel-based tools, mostly Quantcast, might explain it...
  • 5% of us are using a survey tool, in this case it's 4Q by iPerceptions
  • At least one site is using a mapping tool (CrazyEgg)
  • Nobody is using behavioral targeting or a testing tool on the home page of their blog.

Tools by vendor

Really no surprise here...
  • Google dominates with 80% (regardless if it's the old or newer GA code, Ad Sense, DoubleClick, etc.)
  • Note this level of analysis is for Companies. So the vendor Omniture includes the following tools: SiteCatalyst, HBX, VisualScience and Test & Target.

Web analytics tools, and others...


  • 53% of web analytics bloggers are still using the older Google Analytics code... what are you waiting for?
  • Seems like Microsoft Ad Center Analytics, aka Gatineau (20%) and IndexTools (15%) are getting good traction among web analytics bloggers.
  • Some strange ones... we guess Omniture SiteCatalyst is used on the Omniture blog...
  • DoubleClick is used on 2% and AdSense on 12% of the web analytics blogs

What can we learn for WASPs

This is the kind of insight I can provide from a special version of WASP I'm using internally. Of course, the larger the sample, the more accurate it is. So far, I've done analysis for verticals such as Insurance and Automotive, regions like Canada, US, UK, and the Nordics. I can also tap on the growing database of data that now encompass 400,000 web sites.

Here's the synopsis from my presentation at eMetrics Industry Insight:
Stéphane created WASP, the Web Analytics Solution Profiler, a free Firefox extension aimed at web analytics implementation specialists and web analysts. WASP validates proper tagging and reveals whether web analytics solutions are properly implemented. On the back end, Stéphane has a bird's-eye view of the marketplace. Which tools are used by which industries? Which sectors are having trouble with implementation and which are getting it right? What are the industry trends?
On Sunday, before the official eMetrics conference, industry's leading vendors, consultants and practitioners will spend the day scrutinizing the latest data and insights. This is going to be fun!
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Monday, April 14, 2008

Web Analytics Conversations: Spring 2008 Edition

Last Updated: September 26th, 2008
How do you cope with dozens of web analytics blogs? How do you keep track of the most interesting conversations about Web Analytics? Where can you search the most relevant web analytics resources?

Web Analytics Conversations

Subscribe to the most complete aggregated feed of blogs (currently 130 of them!) discussing about web analytics!Add to Google Reader or use your own reader RSS

Official Web Analytics Search Engine

All those blogs are also included in the official Web Analytics Association Co-Op Search. The search engine includes nearly 200 specialized web sites tagged in various categories: blogs, solutions, services, education, etc.As a WAA member, did you know you can add the official WAA Search Engine to your own blog or site? Check out the instructions on the WAA site (members only). You can see it in action on the right side-bar at immeria.net.You can also add the cool WAA Search widget to your iGoogle home page: Add to Google

You can help!

Missing your blog? Invalid entry? Missing valuable web analytics information for the WAA Search Engine? Post a comment or drop me an email and I will fix that!

Full Web Analytics blog list

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Friday, April 4, 2008

Upcoming dinner with Avinash Kaushik & Mitch Joel

A little anecdote: The first time I met Mitch Joel was at a dinner preceding the eMetrics Breakfast a couple of months ago, along with Jim Sterne and Andrea Hadley. I knew who he was: one of the greatest evangelist in the social media/web 2.0 space. He obviously didn't know who I was... But still, when we met again this week at eMetrics Toronto he perfectly remembered about the "link love" from a post I did weeks ago.

We didn't have much time to chat, but here's what I find amazingly interesting: we met face to face only once and despite having thousand of readers and followers in the online social media space, what might be the greatest reward of all is when you can meet and talk face to face with great minds such as Mitch and Avinash Kaushik.

And the opportunity to have dinner with both of them is coming up on April 16th (note: limited seating/pay your own bills). Of course, I quickly sent an email to Mitch to be there!

Like many others, I exchanged emails and blog comments with Avinash several times (how can he find the time to do all of that!). He is even helping me out as an "angel adviser" for WASP and providing invaluable feedback and advices. The first time I met him was at eMetrics San Francisco last year. I was chatting with him while the new version of Google Analytics was being announced on the stage. He was excited like a little child. That's the second greatest thing in our field: we love what we do, we're passionate... we're just like little boys playing Lego :)
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Friday, September 14, 2007

Blog advertising? Act locally!

I was contacted by renowned Quebec blogger Michel Leblanc (in French) who suggested to put advertising on my blog. His idea led to the creation of a new ad network specialized for the local market and fostering links between Quebec's leading blogs. There are a couple of unique aspects to it:
  • It's really targeted to local blogs and local readers, with ads about local events and local companies, what François Laroche (in French) calls "social proximity"
  • It will creates links between leading blogs and globally increase traffic to them
  • The ad format is unique, a 145x145 Flash pub that will be well positioned in the page layout
  • The new ad network is managed by LesAffaires.com, a leading business magazine in Quebec, owned by Médias Transcontinental, largest printer in Canada and leading consumer magazine publisher
  • The sponsoring of participating blogs and the revenue model is also quite unique
  • Each blogger keeps his own autonomy while being part of a larger "elite" group
For the reasons above, it's much better for me than Ad Sense, which hasn't proved to be very effective. A great initiative that gives a hand to local bloggers. So we'll see how the pilot run goes starting September 20th.
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Monday, July 9, 2007

The NextStage of web analytics

I'm often asked about my blogging activities and the time I spend working on WASP. Most people don't understand why I'm taking so much of my free time on "this" even if I'm not getting paid to do it.

The answer is simple: I'm not doing it for money.

My reward is otherwise and goes back to the history of humanity: recognition as in "the state or quality of being recognized or acknowledged". It might sound selfish, but I think it's not: recognition is not something you decide, it's something people give you, just like leadership is determined by your peers. You have to nurture it, to be profesional and ethical in your approach while remaining true to yourself and to others.

What is rewarding to me?

  • Knowing I can help others with the things I know, and learn from them for those I don't. A simple comment on my blog, an email with feedback and sugestions, meeting someone in person, etc.
  • Meeting someone in person who I would have never met if I was not blogging. Be it fellow web analytics practitioners or world renowned web analytics gurus and authors.
  • Speaking at conferences like eMetrics, doing research on topics of interest such as the attention economy or having the chance to meet and work with people I recognize as masters in their field of expertise.

One thing leads to another greater one

As Jeremiah Owyang said recently "remember that even the smallest thing will lead to something bigger, and it will snowball" which is akin to Malcolm Gladwell's "How little things can make a big difference".

I had some interesting email exchanges about web analytics and the attention economy with Joseph Carrabis. His extensive profile is impressive, meeting the man is even more! If you haven't met him in person, think of Professor Henry Jones Sr. from the Indiana Jones movie: quite a fascinating character! :)

Think of it, if Jim Sterne is the Godfather of web analytics, Joseph must be Indiana Jones father!

The NextStage of web analytics

One thing leading to another, I met Joseph in San Francisco. Then he helped me out with my article on "The human metric of web analytics" and we continued to exchange on various topics. Now Joseph suggested we work together on a training or a presentation that would convey the NextStage of web analytics. Joseph Carrabis is the chairman, CRO and founder of NextStage Evolution LLC, a company dedicated to predictive analytics, persuasion engineering and interactive analytics with strong roots in the social sciences and behavioral analysis.

Joseph, I'll be honored to help and I'm sure it will be a rewarding experience!
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Thursday, May 17, 2007

Code of ethics

I was reading René Deschamps excellent post about OX2 code of ethics and I thought I should state my own position toward the Web Analytics community, my blog and my employer.

The Web Analytics community

My involvement in the Web Analytics Association and various committees, as an organizer of the local Web Analytics Wednesdays and a speaker, and my relation with several practitioners, vendors, consultants and fellow bloggers. I will respect...
  1. Vendors: not do product demos or provide product information to competitors;
  2. Clients: any information about someone's actual or intentional use of a solution will be solemnly respected;
  3. Practitioners: empower the users with their actual solution without influencing them to change unless it’s in their best interest.
  4. Consultants: try not to interfere between a vendor-consultant-practitioner relationship. If it happens, the practitioner's best interest will always be favored.

Blogging

I'm borrowing from O'Reilly's proposed code of conduct:
  1. Take responsibility for my own words and for the comments I allow on my blog.
  2. Won't say anything online that I wouldn't say in person.
  3. In case of conflict, I will connect privately before I respond publicly.
  4. Will filter comments that are against my personal values, but will gladly accept constructive comments.
  5. Will post constructive comments to other's blogs.
  6. Will link & reference others contributions in my posts.

My employer

As a web analytics practitioner and a Senior eBusiness Architect at Desjardins General Insurance Group, I will abide the following code of ethics, as described in the Desjardins Group Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct:
  • I will disclose all the details of the situation to my immediate superior if I think a conflict of interest might occur.
  • I will never accept or solicit gifts, tokens of appreciation or benefits, financial
    or otherwise, for myself, an associate or a third party, if accepting such gratuities impairs my objectivity or my judgment in the performance of my duties.
  • Will not engage into any contract without abiding by the prescriptive conditions of my employer.
  • Will not perform an activity or hold a position or a job with a competitor if doing so places me in a position that may prejudice the interests of my employer.
  • Will ensure that the activities I perform outside the scope of my job do not prejudice the interests, image or reputation of my employer.
  • When expressing opinions, I will not give the impression that I'm expressing the official position of my employer unless I receive prior authorization to do so.
  • Will never disclose confidential information or use confidential information for my own benefit.

Full disclaimer

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Friday, January 26, 2007

Snap Preview Anywhere

This morning I have installed Snap Preview Anywhere code on my blog. It enables you to get a glimpse of the other sites I'm linking to, without having to actually leave my site. By rolling over any link, you get a visual preview of the site, thus eliminating wasted "trips" to linked sites.

I think this cool usability feature might, in fact, influence users to stick longer on my site, increase the overall feel of quality and is just plain cool.

Let me know what you think of this feature!
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Monday, October 30, 2006

Web Analytics conversations

Last updated: March 11th, 2008
How do you follow the most interesting conversations about Web Analytics? Subscribe to the most complete aggregated feed of blogs discussing about web analytics!

Current conversations

Add to Google Reader or use your own reader RSS
All of those are also included in the Web Analytics Co-Op Search
Missing your blog? Post a comment and I will fix that!
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Monday, January 2, 2006

Blogger hack: reverse, year based archive list

This Blogger hack allows the monthly archive list, which might become very long if your blog, like mine, goes several years back, to be grouped by years. The listing will show the year of the current posting with expanded entries, and links to the other years. Clicking on another year will go to the latest posting page of that year, whith the monthly archive links expanded.

Additionnally, when looking at a previous post, the first link of the archive list allows you to go back to your most current posting.

<h2 class="sidebar-title">Archives</h2>
<ul class="archive-list">
      <ArchivePage><li><a href="<$BlogURL$>">Publication actuelle</a></li></ArchivePage>
<script type="text/javascript">
var sCurrent=location.pathname;
if(sCurrent.indexOf("200")==-1){var dtNow=new Date();sCurrent=dtNow.getFullYear();}
else sCurrent=sCurrent.substr(sCurrent.indexOf("200"),4);
var archives=new Array();
<BloggerArchives>archives[archives.length]=new Array('<$BlogArchiveURL$>','<$BlogArchiveName$>');</BloggerArchives>
var sPYear="0000",bOpen=true,bClose=true;
for (var i=archives.length-1;i>=0;i--){
   var sURL=archives[i][0],sYear=sURL.substr(sURL.indexOf("200"),4);
   if(sYear==sCurrent){if(sYear!=sPYear&&bOpen){document.write("<li>"+sYear+"<ul>");bOpen=false;}document.write('<li><a href=\"'+sURL+'\">'+ archives[i][1].replace(sYear,"")+ '</a></li>');sPYear=sYear;}
   else if(sYear!=sPYear){if(!bOpen&&bClose){document.write("</ul></li>");bClose=false;}document.write('<li><a href=\"'+sURL+'\">'+sYear+'</a></li>');sPYear=sYear;}
}
</script>
<noscript><BloggerArchives>
<li><a href="<$BlogArchiveURL$>"><$BlogArchiveName$></a></li>
</BloggerArchives>
</noscript>
</ul>

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Monday, December 12, 2005

Blogspot hack: Amazon recommended readings

This hack shows a side-box with a random list of recommended readings from Amazon.
It uses your Amazon Associate ID and a list of ASIN/ISBN. The user can go back and forth through the list. You can see it working on the bottom-right of this page.

  1. The parameters in oAMZ are pretty much self explanatory
  2. It actually uses my own Amazon Associate ID, you can tweak it by looking for immeleblogdes-20 and stephahamelim-20

Blogger Beta

Create a new HTML/JavaScript Page Element and give it a meaningful title such as "Recommended Reading". Then copy the code below:

<!-- Begin Amazon Readings Blogger Scriptlet -->
<a style="float:left" href="javascript:arzPrev()">< Previous</a>
<a style="float:right" href="javascript:arzNext()">Next ></a>
<center><iframe scrolling="no" width="120" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" name="fAmazon" height="172" marginwidth="0"></iframe></center>
<script type="text/javascript">
<!-- Begin Amazon Recommended Readings
var oAMZ = {
sLocale:"CA", // {US|CA}
bImage: "Large", // (Large|Small|None)
bPrice: "None", // (All|New|None)
sTextColor: "000000",
sLinkColor: "000000",
sBorderColor:"ffffff",
sBackgroundColor:"ffffff",
sWindow:"_blank",
asASIN:[
  "078521965X", // Call to Action
  "0072257024", // Google AdWords
  "0470053852", // Google Analytics
  "0785218971", // Waiting for your cat to bark
  "0321344758", // Don't make me think
]
};
function arzSet(i){fAmazon.location.href=oAMZ.sURL+"&asins="+oAMZ.asASIN[oAMZ.iPos]}
function arzNext(i){oAMZ.iPos=oAMZ.iPos==oAMZ.asASIN.length-1?0:oAMZ.iPos+1;arzSet(i)}
function arzPrev(i){oAMZ.iPos=(!oAMZ.iPos?oAMZ.asASIN.length-1:oAMZ.iPos-1);arzSet(i)}
oAMZ.sURL="http://rcm"+(oAMZ.sLocale=="CA"?"-ca.amazon.ca/e/cm?t=immeleblogdes-20&o=15":".amazon.com/e/cm?t=stephahamelim-20&amp;amp;amp;o=1")+(oAMZ.bPrice=="New"?"&nou=1":(oAMZ.bPrice=="None"?"&npa=1":""))+(oAMZ.bImage=="Large"?"&IS2=1&p=8":(oAMZ.bImage=="Small"?"&IS1=1&amp;amp;amp;p=8":"&noImg=1&p=6"))+"&fc1="+oAMZ.sTextColor+"&lc1="+oAMZ.sLinkColor+"&bc1="+oAMZ.sBorderColor+"&bg1="+oAMZ.sBackgroundColor+"&f=ifr&l=as1<1="+oAMZ.sWindow;
oAMZ.iPos = Math.round(Math.random()*(oAMZ.asASIN.length-1));
arzSet(oAMZ.iPos);
// End Amazon Recommended Readings -->
</script>

Classic Blogger

This hack shows a side-box with a random list of recommended readings from Amazon.
It uses your Amazon Associate ID and a list of ASIN/ISBN. The user can go back and forth through the list. You can see it working on the bottom-right of this page.

  1. Change the sAmazonAssociateID to your own account
  2. Change the list of ASIN/ISBN in asAmazon.
  3. You might want to tweak the colors to your own side design where it says
    "fAmazon.location.href=..."
    • fc1=99ddbb // text color
    • lc1=99ddbb // link color
    • bc1=223344 // border color
    • bg1=223344 // background color
    You might want to build a sample Product Link at Amazon Associate Central for easier preview and tweaking of the colors.
<!-- Begin .box #2 -->
<div class="box"><div class="box2"><div class="box3">
<h2 class="sidebar-title">Recommended Readings</h2>
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%">
<tr><td colspan="2" align="center">
<iframe name=fAmazon width="120" height="240" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" frameborder="0"></iframe><br/>
</td></tr>
<tr><td> <input type="button" value="<<" onclick="azPrevious()"></td>
<td align="right"><input type="button" value=">>" onclick="azNext()"> </td>
</tr>
</table>
<script language="javascript">
var sAmazonAssociatesID = "immeleblogdes-20"; // Change this to your own Amazon Associate ID
var asAmazon = new Array(
"0735710627", // Change the list below to your own list of ASIN/ISBN
"1568303823",
"0131854615" // Make sure last entry doesn't end with a comma
);
var azPos = Math.round(Math.random()*(asAmazon.length-1));azSet();
function azSet(){fAmazon.location.href="http://rcm-ca.amazon.ca/e/cm"+"?t="+sAmazonAssociatesID+"&o=15&p=8&l=as1&asins="+asAmazon[azPos]+"&fc1=99ddbb&amp;amp;amp;=1&lc1=99ddbb&bc1=223344<1=_blank&IS2=1&f=ifr&amp;amp;amp;bg1=223344";}
function azNext(){azPos = azPos == asAmazon.length-1?0:azPos+1;azSet();}
function azPrevious(){azPos = !azPos?asAmazon.length-1:azPos-1;azSet();}
</script>
</div></div></div>
<!-- End .box #2 -->
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Thursday, October 17, 2002

Qu'est-ce qu'un blog?

"Blog" est l'abréviation de "Web log". Lorsque j'ai débuté sur Internet il y a plus de dix ans nous avions l'habitude de créer nos propres petites listes d'endroits intéressants, nous avions nos groupes de discussions favoris que nous partagions avec nos collègues et amis. Puis est venu l'ère commerciale de l'Internet et tout a grandit trop vite, est devenu trop inhumain. La venue des outils de "blog" a permis de rafraîchir cette approche en permettant de créer des sites plus dynamiques qu'une simple page personnelle et plus permanent qu'un échange de courriels. Les "blogger" offre une approche plus personnelle que le journalisme traditionnel tout en étant plus accessible qu'un journal intime!
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