unique visitors

Unique visitors is usually seen as key metric in web analytics. Visitors are tracked via a cookie or a IP number. The IP number method is seen as less reliable as some providers allow users to change their IP number. The safer cookie method has flaws as well because

·         People can turn cookies off or delete them

·         People can access the same website with different devices (home, work, mobile)

·         People can use RSS feeds to access content

I think the second point becomes more important now because with the rise of smart phones most people have 2 devices being able to access the internet. So next time you see unique visitors going up as yourself if that's really the case.

PS: There is another point why an increase in uniques is not significant, the increasing internet audience, this is why reach is actually a better measure.

Amex and Tesco

There has been recent news that Amex wants to follow the Tesco Clubcard (dunnhumby) model and start selling aggregated data to whoever is willing to pay for it. Amex' global customer base of 90m makes Clubcard's 14m look small. However, it will be quite a challenge to filter out data or a segmentation which will appeal to all retailers and consumer goods companies. Amex has a very biased customer base, which is good for targeting (which I understand is not part of this because Amex customers never opted in) but not so good for market research. It would be great if Amex could go a step further and create a journey segmentation which would show how customers shop certain categories. I think it will take years for them to data mine their (90m times hundreds of transactions) database.

Fwd: Delivery Status Notification (Delay)

I emailed my own Google wave account and received this error message. So does that mean wavers cannot communicate with others?

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Mail Delivery Subsystem <mailer-daemon@googlemail.com>
Date: 2009/12/2
Subject: Delivery Status Notification (Delay)
To: xxx@gmail.com


This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification

THIS IS A WARNING MESSAGE ONLY.

YOU DO NOT NEED TO RESEND YOUR MESSAGE.

Delivery to the following recipient has been delayed:

    xxx@googlewave.com

Message will be retried for 2 more day(s)

Technical details of temporary failure:
Probe failed: Too many resources/connections in use for: googlewave.com

----- Original message -----

MIME-Version: 1.0
Received: by 10.223.75.136 with SMTP id y8mr913742faj.69.1259680916995; Tue,
       01 Dec 2009 07:21:56 -0800 (PST)
Date: Tue, 1 Dec 2009 15:21:56 +0000
Message-ID: <2b2b3f430912010721x6e588ad6x2bf5a3cfeefd2a5b@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: test
From: Dirk Nachbar <xxx@googlemail.com>
To: xxx@googlewave.com
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=0015174c3c1c9680e20479ac513e

How do people search for restaurants

In the UK, the generic restaurant guide seems to be in decline, Michelin is a famous brand and has peaks in autumn, toptable (reviews and booking) has become more prevalent.

In Germany there is a similar picture. The restaurant guide is in decline, Michelin leads before ADAC and Varta, but in contrast to the UK restaurant review/critique hasn’t quite picked up yet.

pay for news content?

LONDON - The latest survey of consumers' attitudes to paying for online content shows that 48% of people in the UK would pay for news online and on mobile devices.

Boston Consulting Group surveyed 5,000 people in the UK, the US, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Norway and Finland via Research Now's online research service.
The figure is markedly higher than a previous survey by PaidContent UK, in which just 5% of readers said they would pay to continue reading when asked "What would you do if your favourite news site began charging?".
 
The BCG survey asked "How much per month are you willing to pay to get online news on your PC or mobile?", including zero as one option in the multiple choice answer.

http://www.brandrepublic.com/DigitalAM/News/967141/Half-UK-US-readers-pay-online-news/?DCMP=EMC-Digital-AM-Bulletin

 

This is a really interesting difference since almost no-one will pay for what they get for free now, whereas half would pay given payment options. Given various payment options, respondents are less likely to chose no payment.

Ransome's Dock

Restaurant in the docks of Battersea. Nice athmosphere and jazz music
in the background. The food could be better. The courgette fritter are
nice though slightly burnt. The fish and chips consisted of mainly
French fries and very little cod. The cod could have been seasoned
better. Nice service. 3/5

BNP online presence

I am not supporting the BNP in any way.

The Question Time appearance of Nick Griffin has increased traffic to their site massively. In the weeks surrounding the show reach went as high as 0.3% of global traffic (alexa).

Interestingly their reach is higher than that of the three main political parties, even outside the QT period.

The profile from alexa shows that the visitors are mainly middle and retired men with either very low or high education (journalists).

Google Insight reveals that BNP has surpassed Labour as a search term as well. However not as much as the difference in reach - which suggests that many visit the BNP site directly.

Many BNP visitors also visit stormfront.org which is a US White supremacist forum.

my school

here is a video (in German) of my school in Berlin - Carl von Ossietzky Gymnasium, where in 1988 a student got expelled by the Socialist government and had to go into exile in London

http://mediathek.ard.de/ard/servlet/content/1860624;jsessionid=076CAC937D33CD004EDCC8B4045BA345

Kraftwerk - word cloud

German wiki

Digital Strangelove (or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Internet)

Digital Strangelove (or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Internet)

View more documents from David Gillespie.

AI and 2nd life

I am not using Second Life, but I came across the notion that it is artificial intelligence. Now I don't think it is because it's based on actual humans behind avatars creating characters, while the world seems to be fixed, is it? Would 2nd Life pass the Turing test?

Mando Diao - great song - not available in the UK

Cameron at Marr

Andrew Marr should relax. His attacking of Cameron on his show is
pathetic. Cameron is not in power and so he is not responsible. Marr
is very biased.

Sent from my iPhone

new job

I have a new job now at targetbaseclaydonheeley.com - a digital agency.

Gran Torino

I have just watched Gran Torino and I think it's an under-rated movie. It is extremely contemporary for many reasons

• unemployment in post manufacturing US (I assume it was written before GM's collapse)
• old age
• racial inequality and brutality

The story is admittingly simple and the movie is carried by Eastwood who has tremendous economy in his acting. Walt's grumpiness and sarcasm is even funny. I also like how the movie plays with the Dirty Harry theme which is then chucked away at the end.

It deserved more awards than it received.

When should you check in your bags at the airport

I have analysed this problem using 4 scenarios or quadrants. Let's assume it's a big flight and there is two cars which carry the bags from the terminal to the plane.

If you check in the 4th quadrant, then your bag goes to top of 2nd car B and you luggage is loaded as the third, it is unloaded as the second and goes on top of car A which brings the bag to baggage reclaim and the conveyor belt where it will be unloaded first. Reversely if you check in first you'll leave the destination last. This is all based on the first in last out principle and implies 'Take your time'.

Greenspan

Greenspan's prediction that there will be more financial crises in the future is hardly noteworthy. For one his lax monetary policy caused some of the present crisis, and it is obvious that the capitalist system cannot escape the business cycle (boom and bust). His over-cautiousness now is part of the same animal spirits which caused the crisis in the first place - everyone's a bear now.

Polish power - German quality

This is a slogan I saw at a building site in London.

It seems that the stereotype about Germans that they are thorough and
love detail and has helped me because people think this would apply to
me. Now in fact I am not so much into detail and live the big picture
more - I have a can do attitude which can be at odds with pedantry.

Sent from my iPhone

8 steps for a successful segmentation

 

1. Get an overview of what data is available and at what level (how recent is the data)
2. Define the purpose of the segmentation (targeting, insight). Does it need to be updated?
3. Based on (2) define a success criterion (ie it separates pre-defined group A from group B)
4. Collect the data and normalise it, create an estimation sample
5. Correlate the data, can you eliminate certain variables (try variable clustering, factor analysis etc)
6. Start segmenting/clustering (note if you have very few variables maybe you prefer more rigid manual segmentation/classification)
• Can you re-group certain segments?
• Repeat until (3) is satisfied
7. Parameterise segmentation and roll out to rest of population; create a generic process to roll out as population changes
8. Review usage of segmentation after several months

Spotted

British Iranian comedians prefer SW14. Saw Shappi Khorsandi and Omid
Djalili in our borough - separately that is.

Sent from my iPhone

MPs ignore public anger and give themselves 9,000 expenses deal by stealth - Telegraph mobile

Just as bankers return to the good old times, the MPs are at it as
well. They have quietly increased the expense allowance they don't
need to account for with receipts. In this country nothing changes.
Thanks Labour.

http://m.telegraph.co.uk/;s=5coSD7o2tsLCF4v6zerAug02/article/5920660/

Sent from my iPhone

why is scientology advertising on youtube?

next to Obama

what's in a doodle?

http://foundmagazine.com/

Starbucks bingo

Beim Italiaener