Yesterday I listened in on a Marketing Profs Seminar titled "Actionable Web Analytics: Unleash the Marketing Power of Your Web Data."  During this seminar Google Analytics evangelist Avinash Kaushik gave several straight forward tips on how to better harness web analytics data.

The tip that I liked the most is to look at the bounce rate data for referring pages. Of particular interest are the pages with the lowest bounce rates. A low bounce rate is a good indicator that traffic referred from this site is more likely to convert and accept the site's call to action.

Part of search engine optimization (SEO) is garnering high quality links on other sites that can help drive quality traffic to one's site, and using this bounce rate data is an easy way to identify some great sites to consider requesting more links from.  In fact, this strategy is not only accessible to analytics gurus, even those new to using web analytics programs can quickly find and analyze such data. 

The seminar costs money to view, but you still learn from Kaushik at his blog Occam's Razor.

Anti-drug, non-profit websites have a habit of being either dry or so ridiculously overdone that it can make even a seasoned web surfer's eyes bleed. (Don't get me started on the Sunny Side of Truth website…the left navigation bar still infuriates me.)

Today I have discovered a non-profit website that not only gets direct to the point, but utilizes creative Web 2.0 gimmicks.

Through an advertisement on YouTube's homepage, I found the Full Apologies site, dedicated to stopping drunk driving.  The ad cleverly asked me, "What would you do if you killed your best friend?" and invited me to view someone's apology for doing just that.  Admittedly curious, I clicked on the link. (more…)

A few days ago the John McCain campaign launched a new version of their social networking tool, McCainSpace.  Having written about McCainSpace critically before, I figured I’d share some quick thoughts on the tool:

(1) The new version is built using a white label social networking product called KickApps, and features your typical suite of socnet tools: user generated blogs, videos and photos, groups, user profiles, friends, etc.  Kickapps is a nice tool and McCainSpace is professionally done.  However, this is clearly an out of the box solution with generic tools that could be used to power a community of dog lovers or wine aficionados, for example.  There is really nothing about this social network that has anything to do with taking action and winning elections. 

The secret of the success of Barack Obama’s social network is that at its heart it is really a social action center.  When you login to My.BarackObama, you are pushed to make phone calls to undecided voters, knock on doors and raise money for the campaign, not to produce content.  Sure, that functionality exists on the Barack Obama website but it isn’t the main point.  The main point of My.BarackObama is to help Obama get elected.  The same cannot be said for the much more nebulous McCainSpace. 

Check out these screengrabs of the Obama and McCain tools to see the difference in emphasis.

(2) Even if you disagree with me and like the actual tool set of McCainSpace, I think it is too late in the game to be launching something like this.  Mike Turk summed it up pretty well during a conversation we had with Wesley Donehue on Twitter about the tool:

“Why, oh why? What possessed them to launch a new SocNet with 70 days left? No time to market and they should be beyond that stage.” 

Exactly.  Communities take time to build.  This same exact tool launched a year ago might have made a real impact.  This late in the game it seems like too little too late to me.

(3) The McCain campaign’s commitment to their new toy seems pretty weak.  I found out about the new site via an email from the campaign.  However, when I go to the main website and click on the links to  McCainSpace, I’m taken to the old, extremely limited version of the tool people like William Beutler and Mike Turk have been rightly criticizing for the last year.    So there appear to be two versions of McCainSpace running concurrently.I can’t even find a link to the new McCainSpace on www.johmccain.com and there doesn’t appear to be any real integration between the new tool and the campaign website.  Given this, I think the new McCainSpace may  just be a case of the campaign throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks, as opposed to a well thought out initiative like My.BarackObama. 

What do you think?

I'm kind of disgruntled right now with the Obama VP e-mail and text message campaign.  It now seems like a bait and switch scheme to me. (more…)

Ok, maybe I'm a bad person who relies upon stereotypes too much, but one would think a site for geeks would actually have great features since geeks are so tech savvy.  Wrong.

While browsing through the magazine rack at Borders Books earlier this summer, I came across Geek Monthly with its cover girl, Tina Fey.  Either way, I read the article about her since I like her show 30 Rock and went home to check out the magazine's site.  I was expecting a great site that was graphically designed well with bells and whistles like easy to search sections, forums, great blogs, social media features, and great content.  I expected something like the beautiful site for Backpacker Magazine (since when did backpackers know so much about designing great websites?). However, as you can see in this image, like how the current cover boy (Rainn Wilson from NBC's The Office) is dressed, the site does not look pretty.

Either way, the Geek site has a rather distracting design, no clear navigation, seemingly no access to articles from past issues or from the current issue, no community features, etc.  It does have a blog, but not a great one.  You can also see an article from the current issue, but it pops up as a jpg…  What? 

So, I'm disappointed.  Were my expectations wrong in the first place?

The New York Times ran a story yesterday on the Barack Obama campaign’s aggressive use of text messaging this cycle.  I was interviewed for the article and a few of my quotes made the piece.   The reporter, Brian Stelter, interviewed me via email, so I figured I’d publish my responses in an effort to get an easy blog post out of the deal.  Questions and answers from the interview below.

(more…)

Recently, we released our 2008 study of the senatorial campaign websites, and there was a particular element that stood out.  Podcasts were being used by fewer candidates than the year before, despite the fact that it seemed to be a very "tech-y" and potentially useful way to get a candidate's message across.

When I inquired to my co-workers about the discovery, one of them replied that he rarely used podcasts, and he believed that they were a "dying Internet art."  At first, I thought that he was alone in his opinion, but the numbers from the Senate report don't lie.

I decided to do a very informal poll of co-workers and friends to see how often they use podcasts.  I simply emailed 50 of my contacts and asked them two questions: "Have you listened to/downloaded a podcast in the last six months?" and "If so, where did you get it?"  All of the people polled were between the ages of 18 and 40, with a balanced gender ratio.

Then, I compiled all the responses and calculated the results.  The graphs (made using ImpactWatch reporting and graphing tools) displaying the data are below.

It's interesting to note that it seems like my co-worker was correct; most people don't really use podcasts.  At least two of the people that I contacted did not even know what a podcast was.

Of those who listened to podcasts, a majority (nearly a 2/3 supermajority) used iTunes to download them.  Several people were unaware of other ways to procure them.  Are users just ignorant of podcasts?  Are they going out of style?  Or both?

I would venture that the rise in the popularity of blogs has killed the podcast.  Reading a blog is quicker than listening to a podcast, and blogs require a MUCH shorter attention span.  Graphs and the spreadsheet of the data follow:

UPDATE: Chuck pointed me towards this report by Universal McCann that displays on page 63 that podcasts in the US are used by 29.5% of users, which is consistent with my poll.

Excel Spreadsheet of Podcast Poll Data

A few weeks ago we unveiled our favorite WordPress plugins. Drupal is another popular CMS platform we utilize here at Bivings. Here's a list of favorite modules we've compiled for it as well. And as always, feel free to signup and contribute to our wiki. (more…)

People that work in online politics know that a massive email list is the most valuable asset you can have.  A big email list equals fundraising clout and influence.

Yesterday, the Barack Obama campaign announced that they would be revealing his pick for Vice President to supporters via email and text.  The campaign is urging supporters to sign up to receive an email alert to be the “first to know” who the pick is, moments after the decision is made. 

Frankly, the language is a bit vague, as it could be read to mean he will announce his VP exclusively via email and text or simply that they will send an email out as they announce the pick on television or elsewhere, which would be nothing new. 

Regardless, this is a brilliant and novel list building stunt.  The story immediately jumped to the front page of sites like Digg and word of the special VP announcement list is undoubtedly spreading via email and text.  Indeed, after signing up for the list on both text and email you are encouraged to tell your friends and family about the exclusively opportunity to be the first to know about the pick (screen shot below - click for full size). 

I can guarantee you this stunt will help Obama build his list by reaching people who normally wouldn’t sign up for a political list.  A really smart move. 

I read an interesting ebook yesterday titled The Taxonomy Folksonomy Cookbook by Daniela Barbosa of the Dow Jones Enterprise Media Group.  She's a product manager working with the taxonomy and metadata management tool Synaptica.  In this "cookbook" Barbosa argues that companies should use both taxonomies (created top-down with rigid rules) and folksonomies (created from the top-up with flexible rules) to organize their data.

One place where we see folksonomies in play is on social bookmarking sites like Delicious (now sans awkward periods).

Basically, Barbosa argues that folksonomies help create data structures that are easier for a company's employees to use when searching for specific data.  Used in concert with taxonomies, folksonomies can help logically organize data in a flexible manner that creates additional ways to search and sort data.  It's a good read.

A major point of the ebook is that companies should not fret too much about creating rules for their folksonomies to avoid unruly systems.  Barbosa argues that administrators can edit tags, delete offensive ones, create synonyms and aliases, etc.  Further, the existing taxonomy can place tags with multiple meanings in proper context.  Is "mouse" an animal or computer input device?  When the taxonomy for that data item alludes to hardware, then mouse is associated with computers.

I can see how too many rules imposed on a folksonomy can impair its robustness.  If individuals are forced to use tags that are not natural to them, a company might as well stick with its taxonomy.  However, I reckon that companies should institute some basics tagging rules to help their folksonomies function well.

Some issues that rules should address are:

• Standardization of capitalization ("Daniela" vs. "daniela")
• Multiple words in tags ("mouse pad" vs. "mouse-pad" vs. "mousepad")
• Language (an issue for multi-national corporations)
• Use of numbers ("eight" vs. "8")
• Formatting ("080808" vs. "August 8, 2008")

Many tagging sites already have some of these rules.  For instance, on several occasions I have typed in a multi-word tags on a site that said to separate tags by commas only to have the first word in each tag actually used.  Thus, no spaces in tags on those sites.

Now, if you feel so inclined, what do you think?  Would rules like this hinder the robustness of a folksonomy since they could force individuals to think unnaturally?  If not, what are some other useful rules?

A post on ValleyWag recently announced that file-sharing uber-giant BitTorrent would be laying off 12 of its 55 employees.  This accounts for the entire sales and marketing department.  This decision has been made in light of the recent failure of BitTorrent's staff to sell Best Buy its Torrent Entertainment Network for a rumored $15 million.

Since it's only been a year since CEO Doug Walker replaced founder Bram Cohen, it's likely that the entire company may soon be considering a revamp.  After all, Walker commented on making some changes to the store idea last March.

There is speculation that the deal fell through mostly due to the FCC and MPAA's recent crackdown on file sharing.  Outspoken Chairman of HDNet Mark Cuban freshly criticized the MPAA for combating the ‘problem' with prevention instead of promotion (we've all seen those commercials with the hip teens extolling the virtues of not stealing songs).

He claims that movie theaters need to invest in a positive message about the fun of going to the actual theater to watch movies, especially with the ever-growing price of admission.  Author of The Pirates Dilemma Matt Mason agrees with Cuban, saying that theaters should offer a movie-going experience and quality that will never be surpassed by file sharing.

Can you really ever defeat file sharing programs though?  No matter how great the quality and ‘experience', the fact remains that file sharing is free.  And "free" almost always wins.  Unfortunately for them, BitTorrent also recently learned that it's hard to sell something that's free.

As a required companion piece to this post, I have grudgingly crafted a review of the 5 sites that are on the lower end of the design scale. Some of these campaigns have no budget, and others are just a few years behind the times. Some others are just lazy. Although none require any real commentary, I need to take up some space on this blog and I think you’ll agree that I’ve done just that.

Kevin Scott

“Congress is broken and we need to fix it”, states Kevin Scott. At least it says that on his campaign site. This is where I might make a broken site joke, high five Todd and call it a day. But I’d rather focus on the awesome stars and stripes bastardization and glimmering flash treatment that Team Scott chose to waste time on rather than put some actual content on this little gem.

(more…)

DISCLAIMER: 4chan contains many images at which you should not look at if you are under 18…in fact, some of the stuff on this site I don't want to look at regardless of my age.  Visit the site at your own risk.

4chan is an addictive little site that is also incredibly useful.  Why haven't you heard about it before?  Well, chances are that you have, but you just did not know it.  4chan is the original source for some of the Internet's best memes, including Rick Rolling, so i herd u like mudkips, and LOLCats.  Yes, those highly time-wasting Internet phenomena all started from the same source.

(more…)

Getting an article on the front page of Digg often takes a lot more than just writing good (or viral) content.   Many of the stories that make it to the Digg front page do so as a result of a mini-PR campaign, with submitters actively recruiting diggs via back channels such Twitter, email and IM, and by embedding Digg icons within the stories themselves to encourage digging.

But lately I’ve seen a few publishers taking their Digg promotion a step further, building sections on their websites devoted to promoting their stories on Digg. 

The best example I’ve seen of this type of integration with Digg is CollegeHumor.com, which has a section on its site where you can view College Humor stories in the Digg queue, stories that have recently made the front page and the all time most popular Digg stories.  A screenshot is below:

The Huffington Post has a similar feature on its site.  On just about every article page on the is a feature listing “HuffPost Stories Surging Right Now”, which lists stories in the Digg queue.  Screenshot below:

I think these features are really smart.  I’m sure there is a hardcore group of people that are willing to sort through the stories in the Digg Upcoming queue to find and vote for that one great story buried in a seas of mediocrity.  However, most Digg visitors rarely venture into the Digg upcoming section, but are willing to digg your content on your site if the story is engaging and you make it easy for them.  This is the rationale for the ubiquitous Digg buttons.  College Humor and Huffington Post take the concept a step further by creating little mini versions of Digg right on their own site. 

Like I said, that’s smart. Steal this idea. 

In putting together the report we released last week, The Use of the Internet by 2008 Senate Campaigns, my co-workers took the time to identify the websites of everyone running for the Senate this year.  Since my co-workers already did the hard part in finding the sites, I figured I’d cruise through the list and pick out my most and least favorites from a design perspective.    Presented below are the best designed homepages of the group, in my opinion.   I’ll write up the worst later in the week. 

(5) Mark Warner (D-VA)

There is no shame in coming in 5^th place. My father said that to me after a disappointing 11^th place finish in the Pinewood Derby.

Although there is a hint of Obama-borrowing here, I liked this site for its generous use of white space and logical placement of content/actions. The splash page sign-up is of course a real slap in the face but at least the skip through link is not hidden. My eye goes directly from the (only mildly annoying) logo to the contribute option to the actions. Everything on this homepage is easy to instantly recognize and quick to find (and then dismiss in my case).

(more…)