Google announced on June 12 some additions to the new Google Analytics service. Chief among these is the availability of hourly updates, which allows for more realtime tracking, which occasionally comes in handy.

Mar 8
Mar 8 Balkanization of the Web - or Just Better Focus?

Dennis D. McDonald

Google, Search

Feb 15
Feb 15 Belgian Court Reminds Google that Copyright Law Exists!

Dennis D. McDonald

Business Models, Copyright, Google, Newspapers

The Belgian court decision ruling that Google News violates copyright when it publishes information from contributing newspapers without first obtaining permission is a reminder of the precarious nature of much of the information flow we take for granted on the web.

Jan 25
Jan 25 Market Research and Doses of Web Based Reality

Dennis D. McDonald

Blogging, Content Management, Expertise Management, Google, Industry Analysis, Knowledge Management, Market Research, Search, ,

It's amazing what you can find by searching the web -- if you know how to look. I've been heads-down for the past few weeks on a client project, a strategic market analysis for an international outsourcing firm. I've been researching available public sources of sales and technology trends in a variety of markets. I've been aggressively pursuing a variety of web based research options as well as purchasing research documents in a few key areas.

Nov 6
Nov 6 Google will Sell Print Newspaper Advertising

Dennis D. McDonald

Advertising, Google, Newspapers

According to Saul Hansell in the November 6, 2006 nytimes.com article Newspapers to Test Plan to Sell Ads on Google, Google is initiating a test program with the participation of major U.S. newspapers to sell print advertising in the newspapers via Google's online ad sales network. It may seem odd for Google to be selling print ads, but this program makes a lot of sense for both sides:

Oct 11
Oct 11 Writely Becomes Google Docs & Spreadsheets

Dennis D. McDonald

Collaboration, Google, Web Office

I learned yesterday that last night a Writely “planned outage” was planned so I rushed to make necessary modifications before I emailed the sponsor tha a new version was available for his inspection. I need not have worried. The planned time, midnight Eastern time, came and went without a hiccup. One moment I was using Writely. The next moment I was using “Google Docs & Spreadsheets” and Writely was no more.

Apr 18
Apr 18 Will Declining Trust in the Web Lead to Software Islands?

Dennis D. McDonald

Google, Software Islands, Web Office

Richard McManus' Is Google or Microsoft best positioned for Web Office? I say Google is an addition to the growing volume of voices accepting the "when" not "if" of Office 2.0, which I've also written about.

Mar 19
Mar 19 Online Intellectual Property: What About "Non-Documents"?

Dennis D. McDonald

DRM, Demographics, Digital Content Management, Google, , Web 2.0

I received the following email from fellow blogger Chris Law (1000 Flowers Bloom) in response to my article Web 2.0 and Maintaining the Integrity of Online Intellectual Property: I really like your article. One thing that I think is very much related is what happens if it’s not a document? What if it’s say the classified listings on my site that are then being mashed up with a Google Map?

Feb 16
Feb 16 Learning to Use Google Analytics, Part 4

Dennis D. McDonald

Google, Management Tools

One thing you can do with Google Analytics is compare the references your web site gets from different sources. This installment in my Learning Google Analytics series compares one weeks' visits referred from Google itself (e.g., from searches on Google that resulted in someone linking to my web site All Kind Food) with one one-week's visits that were referred from one particular web site where I had left comments and a link back here on a blog entry.

Jan 31
Jan 31 Learning to Use Google Analytics, Part 3

Dennis D. McDonald

Google, How To, Management Tools

In looking at Google Analytics data I have seen that about half of all visitors came to my web site All Kind Food via the main page (which I call “Recent Postings”) and half come directly to other pages. One question that arises is, what do people do before and after they go to a specific page on my web site?

Jan 8
Jan 8 Learning to Use Google Analytics, Part 2

Dennis D. McDonald

Google, How To, Management Tools

In looking over the recent usage data for this site I decided again to look at individual page counts. Google Analytics offers several, including “visits,” “page views,” average time spent on each page, percent of times visitors exited the site from this page (as opposed to going somewhere else in the site), and something called “$ Index” which refers to the accomplishment of a specific type of transaction.

Dec 28
Dec 28 Learning to Use Google Analytics

Dennis D. McDonald

Blogging, Google, How To, Management Tools

A couple of weeks ago I signed up for the free Google Analytics service. This free Google service tracks web site usage including frequency, type, and source of visits, as well as behavior of visitors after they come to a site’s initial web page. I figured that, if Google was going to be knowing everything about my site in order to help it calculate advertising rates, I should at least take advantage of the data.

Oct 10
Oct 10 More on Google Print and the Public Good

Dennis D. McDonald

Copyright, Google, Industry Analysis

Today BBC Online published an interesting editorial about the Google Print Library project by Bill Thompson, a digital author, editorialist, and blogger. Thompson comes down against "authors" and for Google and offers some interesting views on copyright, including a statement that it is a mistake to compare copyright with "traditional" concepts of ownership and property.

Sep 29
Sep 29 Google's Gmail: Should I or Shouldn't I?

Dennis D. McDonald

Google, Industry Analysis, Privacy

I recently sought out and accepted an invitation to use Gmail. Gmail is Google's free advertising-supported email service, still in beta testing. Based on a few experiments, it looks like a good service. But I have some questions about where Gmail is heading that I'd like to think about some more.

Sep 28
Sep 28 Google Print Library Project: Copy First Ask Questions Later?

Dennis D. McDonald

Copyright, Google, Industry Analysis

Perhaps the controversy that is raised by this Google project will be addressed by the development of an appropriate payment scheme agreeable to all whereby copyright owners are explicitly compensated for the value contributed to Google services, as measured by their sharing in the ad revenues generated by use of the search system. One can envision, too, a pool of money generated by advertising related to hits on works whose owners cannot be found, a pool which could be distributed through an industry or nonprofit group specializing in such issues.