Analytics Intelligence with Alerts
Use the power of monitored data patterns to allow Analytics to send you daily, weekly, and monthly reports on your Web site metrics. Trends that may take months to surface can now come to your inbox with minimal effort.

Engagement Goals
You can now start tracking items such as ‘time on site’ and ‘pages per visit’ to give you a better analysis of branding goals, or site success in addition to your other established goals.

Mobile Reporting
With a simple code addition, Analytics can now start tracking your mobile site and mobile based applications for iPhone and Android devices. This includes breakout data on device types and national carriers.

We are really excited to start looking at our clients’ sites with these new features in mind and providing new metrics to help define the growth and success in the months ahead.

As the Internet continues to be a wonderful place to explore, participate, and consume, the technology we use to engage this plane of reality is in a constant state of development by software developers and their communities. As builder of sites that use this technology, we must provide the most progressive and robust experience possible to our clients and their customers, keeping up with these advancements. In this progressive response, we must also leave behind software of the past to continually provide a cost effective solution to our clients. The following list states the current minimum browser standards covered in our development projects.

Microsoft: Internet Explorer 7

Mozilla: Firefox 3.0, Camino 1.5

Apple: Safari 3.0

In addition, as future Web browsers emerge on the market, compatibility for your site and these new browsers may become suspect to new issues. As a proactive approach, you or your marketing department should be conducting an evaluation and review of these new browsers as they emerge. Happy browsing!

Step 1:

Close all browser windows but one. Goto Tools > Options

Step 2:

Select Settings in the Private Data Section

Step 3:

Select the Options you want to keep or remove. Make sure “Cache” is remains selected. When complete, hit OK

Step 4:

Hit the Clear Now Button

Shortcut:

Going forward you can simply press Cntl+Shift+Del to clear your Private Data based on the settings you just selected. Similarly, you can hit Cntl+Shift+R to simply empty your cache only.

So to mark the year in which IE6 will finally fall below supportable levels, I have compiled a list of links to remember this fallen giant and the hordes of people who couldn’t wait for it to pass on. The following links are organized by death-scale, starting with “why is should die” to the more active “campaigns trying to kill it.” Whatever may happen this year, IE6 and I will still have those memories of broken mice and expletives that we shared many a night past.

Why it should die:

1. The weird and wonderful world of Internet Explorer
2. IE CSS bugs that’ll get you every time
3. 119 Bugs in Internet Explorer 6 for Windows

Why it won’t die:

1. The Slow Lingering Death of IE6
2. Campaigns to kill the web browser that just won’t die: Internet Explorer 6
3. Why won’t IE6 die already!?

How to deal in the mean time:

1. How I Might Deal with IE6
2. ie7-js
3. Transparent PNGs in Internet Explorer 6

People who are watching, waiting for it to die:

1. Bring down IE6
2. 6 Reasons Why IE6 Must Die

Campaigns trying to kill it:

1. Stop IE6 script
2. Kill IE6
3. IE Death March

Reason One: Date is not relevant

Blogs are not great tools for organization. The strength of blog publishing comes on the back of being timely. Simply put, blogs are organized in a journal format and the information is presented in that way. So knowing this, do you want a blog so you can publish timely information? Or are you just thinking about SEO and ramming content inside of your domain? If date has nothing to do with your information, your time and money would be better spent putting your information on your web site, organized topically so your users can find it. Blogs should not be used as a general catch-all for your new Web site content.

Reason Two: My Customers are Not Reading Online

If your business is serving customers who are not regular readers online, why do you have a blog? How much time and energy are you putting into this project for minimal return or even following? Your effort could be spent better places, reaching your customers. How do you find out this information? Try one of these tools.

Reason Three: Business as Usual

Blogs can be insightful tools to read into the inner workings of companies. When CEO’s started blogging about the internal issues of their companies, the good and the bad, popularity shot through the roof. Point being, what are you going to do that is different than your typical press release? People turn to blogs for the real-life stuff, the nitty-gritty. They can read a newspaper or watch TV for everything else.

If you’ve passed the test, then you are ready to get out there and add to the ever growing blogosphere. But make sure you are doing it with a more than just a surface level agenda. Good blogging is where good planning and good purpose collide.

The same needs exist with the construction of HTML email. Standards for HTML emails is not a new idea in the least, but it is an idea that needs more and more awareness to have momentum. Standards for HTML emails would allow the creative industry to perform a greater service to their clients by providing a quality product time and time again. Currently, the HTML email arena is lacking these standards, which make the creative industry at ends with the software developers who produce the industry’s leading email clients. These independent spirits, the Outlooks, Eudoras, and faction of webmail clients such as Google and Yahoo, all abide by their own definition of what HTML markup is acceptable in our communications. Under the guise of protecting the consumer, they actually produce a cost to the consumer in the increased time and effort required by companies to send truly permission-based communications.

Its time for all users of email to start looking into what they can do to help the cause. W3C, the standards group for the web is a great place to start thinking about this topic. The last meeting on the conversation about HTML was in 2007. In addition there are other groups like the Email Standards Group who are putting on a great campaign to help raise awareness. Lend them your contact list, or see what you can do to help bridge the divide. Every step will bring us closer to a safer, more productive means of communication through email.

Google Alerts

This service allows any Google user to stay on top of their markets by being alerted to new and relevant information available on the web. Using this service, you sign up to receive emails when sites post new information that matches a particular search query. For example, say you wanted to be alerted anytime the phrase “dog walkers Baltimore” was published. If you owned a dog walking business, you would want to know about any new dog walking businesses, news about dog walkers, or any other published piece of content that matched those criteria. It’s a great tool to keep on top of your market, and bring the information to you in a timely manner. Set up two or three alerts and see which one really works best for you.

Google Analytics

A long time favorite of mine, Google Analytics, is a free web statistics service that allows you to gather some unique and custom information about visitors to your site. By simply adding a small piece of code to the bottom of your web site, Google will track your visitors paths, patterns, and general stats all for free. The power of Analytics cannot be summed up in a single blog post, but if you are not using this app, start now!

Google Trends

This unique tool allows you to compare Web sites by URL to find similarities and differences in a series of criteria. This example shows a quick comparison for two sites in a similar market. Wouldn’t you like to try this with your competitors? Where are your customers coming from, and where are your competitors targeting?

A second component is the ability to see what is happening on certain keywords in terms of frequency and location. Why are Canadians searching for ’shovels’ 30% more than Americans? The same thinking could be applied to your industry. Overall this tool could help you see where possible markets exist, and where you might need to start taking steps to grow next.

Best of luck!

I’ve come to know Cameron Moll only in name, through his numerous mentions in design articles and his strong body of work found at cameronmoll.com. I decided to pick up his book simply on the fact that the consistency of his writing on design and web have never wavered, always bringing insight and clarity to the current atmosphere of mobile web design. And with this purchase, that sentiment stays true.

The book is a lightweight in size, but seems to capture a lot of the introductory concepts with mobile design that can apply to a larger audience whether it be account executive, designer, or client. I find the style and pace easy enough to recommend to my clients, as a primer on mobile design and considerations when taking on a project. His pragmatic approach allows the reader to understand the advantages of the various methodologies, and make a firm decisions based on your own case. This is a solid reference manual, and a must buy for those looking to understand what goes into making a mobile site happen.

Learn more about the book here, http://mobilewebbook.com/

I think this JS application is going to have some serious legs for growth. We get around the whole notion of image based titles, or using flash to render titles in a particular typeface. This is going to keep things very open for spiders and accessibility, which has long term benefits greater flexibility and growth to change. (No more searching or recreating that lost title.psd in photoshop.)

Overall I think this iteration is a great start to what this could really do with vector rendering in browsers. Now if we can just convince Google to buy it and proliferate it, we might see some great lengths to proliferation of real typefaces on the web.

Last night, the event Campaign:Digital, which I hosted for the Greater Frederick Advertising Federation showcased three speakers, in three different areas of online marketing. The audience of the event was filled with eager to learn GFAF members, but also some of my Hood College MBA classmates as well.

David Gurzick, from Hood, gave a very insightful talk on the emergence of bad advertising in social networks. It seemed that the theme in the conversation was that no matter what network you work with, the method of advertising to that audience has not been perfected. The various iterations of Facebook’s ad injections, have only bother or lightly inconvenienced its users, not driven them to click on ads.

Jason Gindele, from Real Magnet, reminded us all of the true effectiveness of email marketing. I had almost forgot about the power this medium has not only the awareness marketing, but in relationship marketing as well. The tool his company provides, Magnet Mail is a simply amazing and worth checking out for large scale email campaigns. I think its time to look at email again.

And finally, Justin Seibert of Direct Marketing Online, gave a fun and insightful primer in the SEO and PPC. It was basic, but did explore some of the tactics and general state of the market in search. The field is getting so broad and competitive that I forecast that more SEO and PPC marketing firms like his will be come fixtures in advertising, if they are not already.

All three of these speakers did a wonderful job of working the audience and delivering some great information for everyone. Hopefully we will present another event like this with the GFAF for the local advertising community. If you attended this event and have feedback, please let me know.