The Next Revolution in Web Analytics?
Posted by Luke Humble
I was reading the .NET magazine today and came across Piwik.org in their beta meta section. After further investigation l felt it was worthy of a mention on my site!
Piwik.org is an open source web application specific to the analysis of your website traffic, much the same as Google Analytics, AW Stats, Webalizer and Analog Stats to name a few. All the mentioned packages are free to use an require various different methods to allow them to track your website and it’s visitors.
So what’s so different about Piwik.org? Well, for starters its Open Source which is the favoured phrase across the internet nowadays. This means you can tinker with the code and modify it to your needs. It also has a customisable interface which means you can rebrand it and offer it as a service to your customers. Along with this it has a growing community creating plugins and integrations with such web applications as Word Press.
Aside from this it still provides everything you come to expect and love about web analytic programs but with the open source spin it has a massive potential to grow into a big contender to the already established website analytics software vendors. Watch this space…
Visit the website: http://piwik.org
Tea Making Solution from Cravendale
Posted by Luke Humble
Have you ever over heard or been part of the tea making arguments in the office? Fed-up of battling against the other employees to get a descent cup of tea? Well fear not, Make The Tea.com is here!
Make The Tea.com is Cravendales Web 2.0 approach to help settle arguments and calm the tempers of the office with the use of the web. It’s approach is both entertaining and useful. Upon signing up you select your “brewers” within the office and when it’s that time you ask the system to choose a brewer at random and hey presto… your tea maker is chosen.
So sit back, relax and enjoy a decent tea (until it’s your turn)!
Google Drive
Posted by Luke Humble
Ever fancied driving around London but can’t stand the traffic? Phatfusion have the answer!
Phatfusion Google Maps mashup allows you to actually drive around London - GoogleDrive!
Inbox 2.0 - Email Standards
Posted by Luke Humble
With Web 2.0 in full throttle and the need for increased accessibility of websites, the time has come to focus this attention on emails.
Emails are the strongest communication tool that exists today. The majority of any companies b2b, b2c can start, develop and end with emails. They are kept as a record of agreements and conversations from individuals and companies both in the form of just plain text conversation and/or with the use of attached files such as quotes, invoices or product sheets.
If you were to take a look at the last 12 months worth of emails that you have both sent and received you would notice that there is a very large percentage that are business related and have generated either some sort of income for you or have resulted in your purchasing a product or service.
It is because of this that emails are so important and this is only for business communication and thanks to the internet, the entire world is heavily connected together. This means communicating with family members and friends through the internet (more specifically emails) has become part of day-to-day life as well.
So suddenly you can see the importance of email in our lives. Because of this and the drive for accessibility backed by Web 2.0, the time has come to look at emails; their formats and their accessibility. This is where the “Email Standards Project” steps in. The Emails Standards Project was setup to work directly with email client developers to ensure that emails displayed correctly. This means that emails will display correctly no matter which email client you use (Yahoo! Mail, GMail, Microsoft Outlook and so forth). It is a community run project coordinated by 3 individuals (more details about the email standards project can be found here).
Emails are important and thanks to the likes of the Email Standards Project they are now getting the attention they deserve and hopefully the email of the future will more comfortable in our inbox.
http://www.email-standards.org
Web Trends Map
Posted by Luke Humble
Information Architects Japan have now released the 3rd version of the Web Trends Map.
It is always interesting to see people try to map out the web for different purposes such as the search engine relationship chart or the not so visually appealing search engine results chart. But Inforation Architects Japan have really done a great job with their third instalment of the Web Trend Map. The two previous web trend maps were based upon the Tokyo train map with 200 popular websites, the latest version has now seen a huge increase in websites to display 300. To make this easier to read they have organised the train lines with less overlapping, making it easier to read as a whole.
You can view the Web Trends Map here.
You can also submit suggestions for site inclusions using their anonymous feedback form.
Browser vs Designer
Posted by Luke Humble
Any web designer will tell you that the hardest part of their job (apart from dealing with clients and feature creaping) is making sure the site displays properly in all major browsers. The reason this task is the trickiest is due to the fact that there are so many different browsers knocking about in the internet and they are only starting to become fully compliant with W3C guidelines such as CSS and HTML. Aside from these issues, it is easy to install different web browsers on your computer, but not so easy to have multiple version running at the same time on the same machine. There are solutions out there, albeit rather techy solutions such as “Internet Explorer Application Compatibility VPC Image” which allows you to have Internet Explorer 6 and 7 running at the same time but only on Windows XP SP2!
Step in Browser Shots!
Browser Shots allows designers to view their site designs not only in different browsers, but in different versions of those browsers (including beta versions) as well as different operating system environments. This is truely a godsend for designers around the world who are face with the pitfalls of the browser compliancy wars.
Web 2.0 Online Speed Dating
Posted by Luke Humble
I recently came across a revolutionary online speed dating service which uses the Web 2.0 platform and combines it with the typical speed dating service that people go to in their local cities. I submitted this spotting to Springwise, a company that reports on new services and trends in the modern world. Springwise have written an article on my spotting:
“Until recently there has been online dating—traditionally a matter of photos and profiles—and speed dating, which took the offline dating world by storm. The two were obviously a match made in heaven, though, because in the last few months several new sites have begun offering speed dating online.
WooMe, for example, which launched in November, is an online introduction platform that allows users to meet, see and hear people live in 1-minute conversations.”
Read the full article here: http://www.springwise.com/lifestyle_leisure/online_speed_dating/
Marine Mammal Observer Training Course
Posted by Luke Humble
Scanning Ocean Sectors (www.scanningoceansectors.org) is quickly approaching the 12 month mark from when the website was first launch and 18 months since the company started in sunny Dorset, UK. The past 9 months has seen the company go from strength to strength thanks to the dedication of Yvonne Miles and myself running the online marketing and search engine optimisation.
The website also aided Scanning Ocean Sectors (SOS) in increasing global awareness of the need for Marine Mammal Observers (MMOs) and how important they are in todays modern world. The company runs courses all over the world and have established two main bases in the United Kingdom and in Australia where they run the majority of their full time courses. Aside from this, Yvonne travels all over the world training groups and companies from all walks of life and is quickly establishing a high reputation for both herself and her companies work.
If you are interested in the mmo training course you can take a look at www.scanningoceansectors.org/course/
You can also join the Facebook group at www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10340108101
Hello world!
Posted by Luke Humble
Welcome to LukeHumble.com.