Hadoop Becoming Mainstream?
GigaOM: #Hadoop jumps through hoops, becomes mainstream; http://j.mp/ykbH6g #BigData http://eicker.at/BigData
GigaOM: #Hadoop jumps through hoops, becomes mainstream; http://j.mp/ykbH6g #BigData http://eicker.at/BigData
SEL: How search conversions are driven by display impression frequency; http://eicker.at/DisplayDrivesSearch
Social business: harnessing intelligence, measuring community health, moving to engagement; http://eicker.at/SocialBusiness
Google Analytics goes real-time, finally: What’s happening on your site right now? http://eicker.at/GoogleAnalyticsRealTime
Google: “What’s happening on your site right now? – Currently, Google Analytics does a great job analyzing past performance. Today we’re very excited to bring real time data to Google Analytics with the launch of Google Analytics Real-Time: a set of new reports that show what’s happening on your site as it happens. … One way that I like to use these reports is to measure the immediate impact of social media. Whenever we put out a new blog post, we also send out a tweet. With Real-Time, I can see the immediate impact to my site traffic. … You’ll find the Real-Time reports only in the new version of Google Analytics. If you’re not already using the new version, you can start by clicking the ‘New Version’ link in the top right of Google Analytics. … We just turned the reports on for a number of you, and over the coming weeks, everyone will have access to Real-Time.”
Google: “We learned from some of our largest customers that they have some specific needs that the current version of Google Analytics can’t meet in their entirety. Today we’re addressing these needs by announcing a new option built for our largest customers: Google Analytics Premium. … Extra processing power – increased data collection, more custom variables and downloadable, unsampled reports – Advanced analysis – attribution modeling tools that allow you to test different models for assigning credit to conversions – Service and support – experts to guide customized installation, and dedicated account management on call – all backed by 24/7 support – Guarantees – service level agreements for data collection, processing and reporting”
RWW: “Google Analytics, the super dominant free web analytics platform, has to date offered analytics that were roughly 24 hours behind. The wait to stop waiting has come to an end and today the company announced that Google Analytics is now rolling out real-time reporting to its users. … My prediction: Google Analytics is going to become a much bigger part of the company and a much broader offering in the future than it is today. With the recent purchase of startup Postrank, Google will be able to offer real-time social media analytics soon. As the definition of the web expands into and beyond mobile, into and beyond other newly connected devices, the Google Analytics offering will expand allong with the world’s understanding of information. It will organize all that information and now it has laid the groundwork do it in real time and for a fee.”
TC: “Google Analytics, the immensely popular suite of tools that Google offers to help webmasters track their site traffic, is getting a big boost this week: the service has launched a real-time dashboard that updates with user events as they happen. – That’s a big deal, as it brings Google more in line with popular real-time analytics products like Chartbeat, which allows you to track things like how many people are currently on your site, and how much traffic each individual article has gotten in the last few minutes. … In addition to Real-Time, today the Analytics team has also announced a premium tier for enterprise companies who want more support (and datapoints tracked) than Google offers with its free service. Google says that for an unspecified price, companies will be able to get phone support, SLA guarantees, and increased data limits.”
VB: “For quite some time, Google Analytics has offered webmasters a free way to measure traffic of their sites 24 hours after the action occurs. But since real-time traffic startups like Chartbeat (a service we use) and Woopra came onto the scene, Google Analytics has looked slow in comparison. Thankfully, that’s remedied with these new stats tools, which include social media impact and campaign measurement.”
LM: “Real-Time reports do not include profile filtering. That extra processing step is currently bypassed in the interest of optimizing speed. So even if you’re looking inside a filtered profile, keep in mind that no data is being filtered out of the Real-Time reports. – Let me emphasize that this doesn’t mean that all your GA data is now real-time. Some of GA’s standard reports have deep functionality that also requires too much processing to be reported instantly. You have to look in the Real-Time reports for real-time data.”
Which social media marketing metrics matter? http://eicker.at/2f What about social media values and ROI? http://eicker.at/2g
Gartner: IT organisations face disruptive change in 2011 due to transparency, need to drive business value; http://eicker.at/1v
Mask: 5 metrics every software CEO should obsess over. CPA, NIPE, NPS, CLV, Adoption; http://eicker.at/SoftwareBusinessMetrics
Diaspora releases set of invites for its alpha: baby steps to identify problems and iterate; http://eicker.at/DiasporaAlpha
Diaspora: “Today we’re releasing the first set of invites for the Diaspora alpha at joindiaspora.com. Every week, we’ll invite more people, starting with our Kickstarter backers, and then moving through our mailing list. By taking these baby steps, we’ll be able to quickly identify performance problems and iterate on features as quickly as possible. – We are proud of where Diaspora is right now. In less than five months, we’ve gone from nothing to a great starting point from which the community can keep working.”
TC: “After the money came in, the team sequestered themselves for the Summer to work on the project. Despite some hiccups, they were able to unveil the source of the project in September to mixed reviews. Meanwhile, a user-facing alpha launch was promised for October. That came and went, and they pushed the launch to Thanksgiving. Well, we’re two days away from turkey day, and Diaspora has delivered this time. … But the service is also quick to hedge their bets. ‘It isn’t perfect, but the best way to improve is to get it into your hands and listen closely to your response,’ they note about the aspects idea. They then go on to list five things they know they could do better, including: security, better APIs, better documentation, easier upgrades, and cleaner code. Yeah, that’s quite a few major things.”
Mashable: “Since the initial flurry of interest, we’ve been waiting to see how the project would pan out – and if the guys would give us a clearer picture of what it would look like. Back in September, the Diaspora team released their source code to developers, receiving less than enthusiastic reviews. According to the guys, however, dev feedback has been extremely helpful when it comes to fixing bugs and security holes. … In the meantime, however, we have to wonder if it will succeed. Facebook – despite the previous security crisis – is still going strong, and the alternative social network market is becoming more competitive…”
Media agency leaders: What the media agency of the future will look like; http://j.mp/9gUvYK
Same procedure as every year: Google and Apple gain strongly in the Best Global Brands rankings 2010; http://j.mp/d6C9XU
Interbrand: “IBM, Microsoft and Google lead Interbrand’s 11th annual ranking of the ‘Best Global Brands.’ Google (#4) sees a 36% increase in value over last year, bringing the brand closer than ever to rival Microsoft (#3). HP (#10) enters the top 10 for the first time, having increased brand value under a new business model and brand platform. For the 11th year straight, Coca-Cola (#1) retains its top spot as the number one ranked brand on the list. … A number of prominent brands faced extraordinary crisis in 2010 resulting in stalled growth, value loss and in the case of BP, failure to make the ranking this year. BP’s environmental disaster and inability to make good on its brand promise of ‘Beyond Petroleum’ led to it falling off of the list and helped competitor Shell emerge as an industry leader, now ranked number 81, up from number 92 in 2009.”
Interbrand on Google: “As Google continues its upward path, it increasingly finds it difficult to reconcile its brand promise, ‘Don’t be evil,’ with the realities of a powerful global brand. Although it continues to leverage this messaging through investments in Google.org (its not-for-profit philanthropic arm) and a number of other initiatives, its access to user information and what it is doing with it is increasingly being scrutinized. Recently, it compromised a key value – trust – when it violated 176 million users’ privacy with Google Buzz. And though its effort to pull out of China, which was censoring the search engine, and realign with its message demonstrated its commitment to its promise, only a few months later, it was quietly persuaded to work with the regime again. Still, Google’s reach and record for innovation is undisputed. Expect the brand to continue to diversify and expand, even as it experiences increasing backlash.”
Interbrand on Apple: “Apple had another great year. Negative buzz over the iPad name was quickly replaced by glowing sales and avid converts. Meanwhile, the iPhone 4’s sales reached the 1.5 million mark its first day. It continues to control its messages very carefully, which creates enormous buzz and anticipation. Advertising campaigns and interactive websites remain distinct and consistent, keeping the role of brand exceptionally high. If the brand has one fault, it’s the failure to provide perfectly functioning new products. This year, iPhone 4’s reception glitches warranted a public apology from Steve Jobs – and left the door wide open for public criticism. Apple could also improve its corporate citizenship profile, which remains neutral. While it partners with the PRODUCT (RED) Global Fund, this remains relatively unknown.“
Hinchcliffe: “As businesses begin looking strategically at big data as a way to improve their business performance, an important element of their efforts will be in the burgeoning capability of social analytics… 1. Social media has become the primary creative channel for new information. 2. Business intelligence must look at the whole ecosystem. 3. New techniques are required for social analytics as well as to handle the volumes of big data that result. – While the field is somewhat new, as social analytics has only had a real run-up the last two years, some obvious strategies have started to emerge. For now, most organizations will be trying to build basic social BI capabilities and get experience with them…
There are other ways to apply social BI but these will be the most common ones for the majority of companies building or acquiring such capabilities.”
Camargo: “Creating successful online communities is still more art than science, yet techniques and frameworks are now emerging to turn social business into a real discipline. This week we take a look at a new case study that explores metrics that can measure the intrinsic health of communities instead of looking purely at size as the defining barometer. … Conventional wisdom tells us Community Owners should rely on two key metrics to track the success of an online community: Membership (number of registered users) and participation (number of active users in a given time period). That’s well and good but what about measuring the health of the community, not just its size? … Each and every community out there will have its own particular intricacies and you organization will surely require you to adhere to its own KPIs and reporting frameworks. In our case, the content contribution pyramid-inspired reporting model was a very valuable addition to our reporting toolbox. This KPI enabled us to understand variations in context, purpose and participants within each of our communities while keeping an eye on overall growth trends.”
Hinchcliffe: “When we look back at the first decade of the 21st century, it will be obvious that a few momentous changes in the business and computing landscape occurred. Of these, one of the most profound has been a decreasing emphasis on systems of record and the move towards what are called systems of engagement. … Systems of record have matured to the point where there’s only a little strategic advantage to having your own unique capability. Instead, the discussion on strategic technology has shifted to the other 40% of what businesses in industrialized nations do: Knowledge work. … Thus, using technology to enable knowledge work as a strategic capability has sparked a growing interest in improving what are increasingly known as systems of engagement. … For enterprises, ground zero for the transition to systems of engagement in many companies often centers around any pending update of the corporate intranet. … What’s also clear about the changes taking place in businesses today is that systems of record are not going away. … New systems of engagement are now receiving considerable attention in the forms of online communities, crowdsourcing, Social CRM, open APIs, and many other means as a way to connect customers and business partners together to achieve useful outcomes with the most cost-effectiveness and largest result.“