Move Along

I am not really actively posting to this blog anymore, so head on over to Red Hot & Daily.

Google Analytics

So it looks like Google is getting into the stats business now. They have just launched a new service called Google Analytics. It seems to be getting hammered by traffic right now, so it is a little hard to get in. I signed in with my Gmail account and have plugged the stats package into my main blog at www.jeremyflint.com.

Basically, you drop a chunk of Javascript in the head of your site template (or on any page you want to track stats for), and Google does the rest. I should have some stats within the next twelve hours, so it will be interesting to see how they display them.

While we are on the subject of web-based stats, I also got an invite to try out MeasureMap, the new web app from the fine folks at Adaptive Path. I am running it on my Mississippi State Sports Blog, and it seems to be doing well. The difference between MeasureMap and other stat packages is that MeasureMap is geared towards blogs, measuring not only visitors and links, but the number of comments and direct hits on posts.

Google Base

Earlier this week, the Google Base site went live for a short period of time, but long enough for people to get screenshots and post them to Flickr and other locations.

Today, Google Base went live again, and it seemed to be for good. Now, less than 6 hours after it first went live, it is back down again. I noticed mid-afternoon that the main page was redirecting me to a login screen, asking for my Google account (Gmail).

When I logged in, I was redirected back to the same login screen. Thus began a never-ending loop that I couldn’t get out of.

Now it seems that the site is back down all together. Was it an overload of hits/requests on the server? Was it just not quite ready for prime time and pushed out the door early? 

I’m A Flockstar!

I recieved an invite yesterday to download a developer preview of Flock, a new browser that is based on Firefox/Gecko with additional features, such as integrated del.icio.us, flickr, and blogging tools.

 I am still kind of combing through it and testing it out. The interface for posting to a blog seems kind of clunky and slow, but the browser is only at version 0.4, so things will more than likely improve.

The Yahoo! RSS White Paper

Yahoo has published a report on RSS that has some interesting numbers in it. I would try to post them here, but Steve Rubel has already done a great job so I will just quote him.

• Awareness of RSS is quite low among Internet users. 12% of users are aware of
RSS, and 4% have knowingly used RSS.

• 27% of Internet users consume RSS syndicated content on personalized start
pages (e.g., My Yahoo!, My MSN) without knowing that RSS is the enabling
technology.

• 28% of Internet users are aware of podcasting, but only 2% currently subscribe
to podcasts.

• Even tech-savvy “Aware RSS Users� prefer to access RSS feeds via user-friendly,
browser-based experiences (e.g., My Yahoo!, Firefox, My MSN).

• My Yahoo! has the highest awareness and use of any RSS-enabled product.

I know when I spoke at a PR conference back in August, I got some really strange looks from the audience when I started to mention RSS. For mainstream adaptation to occur, I agree with Steve and others that RSS needs to become a seamless experience.

I think we are heading in the right direction with browsers such as Firefox and Safari introducing RSS, as well as the upcoming IE7.

Search Engine Ranking Factors

This article contains a large list of the factors that can influence a web document’s rank at the major search engines (Yahoo!, MSN, Google & AskJeeves) for a particular term or phrase.

 

Here is the article. 

Easy Print Styles

Exploding Boy Chris Ware has a great little tutorial on creating print stylesheets. Some of the tips I had not even given thought to yet, like setting HTML to 100%.

Great tips Chris.

WE05 Podcasts

If you can’t be in Sydney for WE05, I guess this is the next best thing. Conference workshops captured as podcasts for your listening pleasure.

High-Resolution Images From The Web

We have been talking in the office recently about ways to deliver compressed images to a website for fast downloading, while at the same time offering a higher-resolution version for when those pages are printed. This would be applied to situations where you are including diagrams or floor plans in a webpage.

Of course, I had completely missed this article over at ALA dealing with the same issue.

The general gist of what is said in the article:

While we can create images for use on screen, we can also create larger images and force their size down (and their dpi up) for use by printers. We can make hi-res logos and headings, 300dpi photos, and even images specifically needed for printed pages—and serve up these print-specific images using print-media CSS.

Some very interesting stuff in here. 

Rollyo

It has finally launched into public beta, so I guess that means I can post about it. Rollyo is a site that lets you “roll your own” search engines, but selecting sites that you want included in it.

From the horse’s mouth:

Rollyo puts the power of Yahoo! Search in your hands, by giving you the tools to create your own personal search engines – with no programming required. All you have to do is pick the sites you want to search, and we’ll create a custom search engine for you.

So basically you are building your own index of sites that you want to search through. Say you are always looking for news on your favorite sports team. You could roll your own search engine that consists of all the major sports sites out there, and ignore the ones that are irrelevant or outdated.

I am still exploring the uses of Rollyo myself, but have already been impressed by the application.

The site template and logo were designed by Dan Cedarholm of SimpleBits. Great job all around.