The Alexa Debate Continues

advertising

Ever time I see someone quote Alexa numbers it makes me sick to my stomach. The reason is that their numbers are far from accurate.

Last week I had a client email me looking to advertise on one of my properties. He sent me a advertising figure that I quite literally laughed at. When I replied that the rate was about 15 times lower than what we normally charged he replied with a Alexa chart.

I followed up with some screen shots from my Google Analytics account, and the client said it was impossible for the numbers between Alexa and Google Analytics to have such a huge delta, and actually semi-accused us of fudging the numbers.

I wrote off Alexa a long time ago, sadly many people still do not have a clue that their numbers are pretty far from being even reasonably accurate.

Faulty Alexa data ends up hurting small companies like mine because this gives agencies the ability to negotiate with bad data. I think though the Agencies know it’s bad data and they use Alexa data points when they can as they know they can strong arm companies into lower advertising rates and get away with it.

Coffee Shop Without Wifi? Perish the Thought!

Geek Culture

When I am stuck, in a funk or whatever, I pack up my laptop and head for the nearest Wifi. spot. In this case, it’s a coffee shop about 2 blocks away. The coffee is not that great but it can be with a little shot of espresso….

I also have a Panera Bread close by. A little farther I can go to 2 different bars and even more places where I can sit and work. Beer and Blogging – my favorites.

Every now and then I look up and see who else is sitting here and what they are doing. Reading books, playing on the Internet, talking business. A few days ago I watched an 18 year old have an interview for a Database job. Yes, I was eavesdropping. It was interesting.

I have to admit, if it wasn’t for Wifi, I would never be in a coffee shop. Most gourmet coffees are not of my taste. Call me crazy, but I like the coffee that comes with your eggs, hash browns and toast.

I wondered how much coffee shops rely on Wifi to bring in customers? Even so, I wonder if that actually helps or hurts the coffee shop.

A couple months ago I reported on my own site that my favorite coffee shop (Caribou Coffee) closed it’s doors by my house in Fitchburg, WI. I knew they weren’t doing that great, but I thought it was just a small slump.

The funny thing about it was that coffee shop usually had people in it. This shop I am in now (the closer one) is not as busy and it’s even bigger than the other one. Nonetheless, that shop had problems.

Last Thursday I spent 7 hours at a coffee shop. I wrote 4 different articles and ran through a lot of business in that time. As I was there I had 3 cups of Coffee, a cookie and a Root Beer. $8 for 7 hours of work. That’s a little over a dollar an hour to rent the space and Wifi. I left a tip.

It does ask the question if a coffee shop actually makes money. Of course, lots of people drink it, some of them go out of their ways for good coffee. You have businesses that order large amounts for the break room, special meetings or other events. I suppose they can get business that we wouldn’t even see.

Nonetheless, I am glad I can go somewhere else to get some work done. I even like the idea I can “Beer and Blog”. It gives me a change of scenery and I get some great food and drink. I hope this doesn’t go away…

Tape Delay by NBC of Olympics a Loosing Proposition

Media

When I heard NBC was going to tape delay most of the Olympic events I knew they were kidding themselves if they thought they were going to be able to stop people from accessing Olympic content being broadcast real time in other countries.

My wife watched the Olympics live from a Chinese website and although the commentary was in Chinese the video was good enough for her. In desperate action NBC had people ready with take-down notices and supposed pre-arranged agreements with the big video sites.

Shame on NBC for tape delaying. They were foolish to think people would wait 16 hours for event. We live on the Internet and people want the video of these types of events live.

NBC should stream everything live and then do their tape delay, then they would not have this issue.

A New Podcast Plugin for WordPress

Info

My team at RawVoice has released our latest podcasting tool, it’s called the Blubrry PowerPress Podcast Plugin for WordPress.

The PowerPress plugin was built to support podcasters and also support our Premium Publishing Service at RawVoice. While the plugin carries the name of our flagship website it will work with anyone looking to publish a podcast on WordPress.

The Podcast Plugin has some of the following features

  • Easily add/modify/remove podcast episodes from blog posts
  • Integrated media player
  • iTunes RSS tags
  • iTunes album/cover art
  • Standard RSS Feed album/cover art
  • Ability to upload new cover art
  • Ping iTunes
  • Media size detection
  • Duration length detection (mp3 only)
  • 3rd party statistics integration

My team had a goal to make a podcast plugin that would be easy to maintain as WordPress matures. The way it was developed was to ensure that the plugin stores podcast episodes the way WordPress expects them natively.

RawVoice looks forward to community feedback and like all products we develop it will continue to evolve over time.

Dish + DirecTV = Real Competition for Cable/Telcos?

business

For the last two days there have been rumors swirling about the possibility of Dish Network and DirecTV attempting a merger. They tried it in 2001 but the FTC wouldn’t approve it. After the recent merger of XM and Sirius, I have to think the FTC has loosened their stance on not allowing large media providers to merge.

I would say the merger would be good, but only if it meant that the new company would focus on providing true competition, and figure out how to become large media providers. They will have to offer something different than just television service. They need to be able to move into the broadband market.

Our choices here are limited to bad, and worse than bad. We have Charter Cable in my local area, which is fast, but with horrible service and lots of outages (every time it storms, just about). I live in a neighborhood where all wiring is underground, and when there is a failure, the cable company simply strings a nice orange data cable from yard to yard until they get around to putting it back underground, which can be months. Last winter during snow removal, one of these orange cables was in the gutter of the street, and the snow plow snapped it in eight places, disconnecting cable to half the neighborhood. Then there’s AT&T, our only source of DSL, which is stable and works well. My fear of AT&T DSL is that they will start capping our bandwidth, which they are already talking about. I have the highest-end DSL, so I would think the cap would be higher because we pay more, but who knows? We don’t have alternatives like FIOS or Clearwire available here.

If the satellite companies could figure out how to deliver true high-speed, economical broadband service to homes, that might be a breakthrough worth cheering. The more competition we can see against behemoths like AT&T, the better it will be for all of us.

Does anyone truly own an Apple Product?

Apple, Fair Use, ipod, Technology, , , ,

Let me share my feelings on Apple products. I don’t like them period. It is not because they suck or are not easy to use. Clearly they are user friendly and from what I hear do not suck. That is why they are so popular. But the company is so controlling about what you can do with their products. And make no mistake it is their product even after you put down your hard earned money for it. Sure you can use it when you want, take it where you want, even sell it when you get ready to do so. But try to alter it or use it in a way Apple does not care for, then you have trouble. And they can even disable your device in cases like the iphone. Try to move your itunes library to another computer or media device not made by Apple and you will see who really owns “your” stuff. I tried to get my wife’s songs from her itunes library into mp3 format so I could place them on a new Creative Mp3 player. Well if I wanted to burn cds of all the songs and go on a digital adventure that would last hours I would have went ahead. But I just gave up. I understand why they create a walled garden. It is to keep people using their devices the way Apple deems appropriate. But it also keeps people like me who like a little flexibility in their tech devices from buying Apple products. I know Steve Jobs will make it without my few dollars though:) .

The story Todd did on the last podcast about some people’s iphones getting disabled because they had an unauthorized application loaded on it really got to me. Either the phone is yours or it is not. The fact that a small percentage of people may get over in some way by not giving Apple more money does not justify keeping every single user from using their property how they want. When you by a new Dodge truck you have the ability to get accessories after the fact that were made by companies other than Dodge. When you buy a house from a builder he does not lock you out of your home when you don’t let him build on a new deck that your brother will do for free. I understand this is comparing apples to oranges but the principle holds true. Just because Apple can lock you out because it is a digital product does not make it right to do so. Wikipedia defines ownership as “the state or fact of exclusive rights and control over property”. If Apple controls your iphone or ipod after you bought it do you really own it?