Google Analytics API new changes

For those who are using the Google Analytics API, around one week ago some changes were announced in the official blog of GA.
From the changes posted one of the most significant are:

• The possibility to get the timezone and currency from the account feed (http://www.google.com/analytics/feeds/accounts/user@gmail.com)
• The increased number of data that can be retrieved from the API at once. Currently we can request up to 10.000 rows of data.

For more information about the API go to the Google Code Page

Google Analytics and Social Media

Social networking can be used to increase traffic to your website, generate more sales and leads and enhance your visibility to potential and existing customers. In order to achieve these objectives you need to assign value to each initiative you undertake and align social networking with your business objectives. If you want to increase the number of visits or improve your visibility in the marketplace, you should focus on listening to clients and competitors (Google Alerts, Twitter), share content (Flickr, YouTube, Blogger, RSS, MySpace), build good relationships (Facebook, LinkedIn), dialogue with customers (Twitter) and generate buzz (Digg, Twitter) and participate in the community (Twitter, Facebook).

Once you are active within social networks you need to determine how you are performing and calculate your ROI (Return On Investment). Google Analytics allows you to measure metrics for visitors accessing your site from social networks in quantitative terms, but it is also important to understand the qualitative value of your efforts.

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Bearing in mind the metric that wants to be measured using Google Analytics, it's possible to determine how well we are performing; although with social media in quantitative terms we need to be careful and do not forget that also we are measuring qualitative results. Some of the best practices when measuring the results for social media traffic include the definition of goals associated with the traffic from social networks, and the loyalty reports.

The next are some example of social media tools that have become famous for marketing strategies and with the use of Google Analytics we can see from which social media tool our visitors are referred (e.g twitter.com, digg.com, facebook.com)

1. Flickr

If you have an account in Flickr and do you want to use it for marketing, it's useful not only adding pictures but also making comments about them that contribute to a discussion about the product or service offered. It is recommended create groups for specific topics and invite clients to join them.

To help that people find you on Flickr when they use Search Engines, it is useful to tag the pictures with relevant keywords and descriptions. It is also important to create a profile that helps people to recognise you and find useful the information that you share.

2. Facebook

In the last years Facebook has become very useful for different purposes that are not limited to share pictures and update our status in a social meida site. Lots of businesses advertise in Facebook, and have created their own account to answer questions, keep in touch with clients and create online marketing comunities that can be classified by city, region, workplace, and school.

3. Twitter

Twitter helps to gain attention for the business, improve traffic, address people to your business and build partnerships in a easy and cheap way because everything you tweet (links, text, images) in your profile is seen by people that is following you. Having a twitter account increase the probability of being found in Search Engines.

Although by default GA shows that the source is comming from twitter.com, it's possible to add the GA's campaigns with the tracking parameter and convert it in a small URL using tools like tinyURL.com

Options to check social media traffic in Google Analytics

• By default GA recognise the source from the visitors are coming; therefore, making use of advanced segmentation is possible to compare metrics of all visits with those generated by social network tools (twitter.com, facebook.com, digg.com...). The next are the steps to follow:

1. Click in Manage Advanced Segments
2. Click in the linck +Create new custom segment
3. Drag the Dimension "Source" to the "add or segment"
   
4. In the condition choose "Matches Exaclty"
5. In the value field insert all the Social Media tools from where your site can get traffic (e.g. twitter.com)
6. Add "or" statment
7. Then repeat step 5 & 6 until you have entered all the Social Media sources.
8. Click in Test Segment
9. Click in Create Segment
10. Start comparing other metrics in your reports with this segment.
    

This option is easy to implement but every time that you identify a new social media traffic source, it has to be added to the segment. Can be possible to use the Condition "Contains" instead of "Matches exactly" because sometimes the traffic is generated from subdomains such as uk.facebook.com.

• Other option is to create filters for the social media traffic generated.
  

The advantage of creating a filter for the social media sites is that you can dintiguish from the other referral links. In order to create the filter that match all the social networks from where we want to group we need to use regular expressions (a little bit similar to the advanced segment).

1. Go to the profile where you want to add the filter (Remember the filters affects the profile where they are applied)
2. Click in Edit
3. In the section "Filters applied to Profile" click in +Add Filter
4. Select "add new Filter for Profile"
5. Enter a name for the filter (e.g. Social Media Traffic)
   
6. Select Filter Type "Custom Filter" Advanced
   
7. For Field A -> Extract A select Campaign Source and in the field text write all the social media sources you want to group in this filter divided by "|" (e.g. filckr.com|twitter.com|facebook.com)
8. For Otuput To -> Constructor select Campaign Medium and write the name that you want to re-label for this referral in the text field (e.g Social Media)
9. Click in Save Changes

• Another option is to add the plugin created by VKI Studios that reports automatically the social media sources.
  

The steps are very simmilar to the other Grasemonkey plugins.

1. Install Greasemonky in your Firefox (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/748)
2. Restart Firefox
3. Install VKI script (http://blog.vkistudios.com/downloads/greasemonkey/smmPluginForGA/1.2/smmPluginForGA.user.js)
4. Log in to the GA account and check the Content Detail report for example.

Note that this option only works for firefox.

Google Analytics Seminars for Success in Australia

For those who are interested in improving their online marketing, a good option is to take the Seminar for Success designed by Google Analytics experts.

By attending this seminar you will learn how to monitor, measure and improve your website performance and identify online opportunities as well as new strategies. In addition, you will be familiarized with the Google Analytics tool, understanding the features and reports provided in the tool and how to take business decisions based on them.

The Seminars for Success have been run in different countries and are sponsored by Google, which ensures the most reliable information about the best use for GA (Google Analytics) and GWO (Google Website Optimizer).

Today Google published in the official Google Analytics blog news about the next Seminars for Success that will be run in Melbourne, Phoenix and Toronto.
For more information access Analytics - Blog Post.

Swine Influenza 

The next is information received from the Macquarie University Staff Health.

Swine Influenza is a highly contagious acute respiratory disease of pigs, caused by one of several swine influenza A viruses. This strain of influenza virus is unique because it is a combination of swine, bird, and human influenza viruses and is directly transmitted from pigs to humans.

The virus is transmitted in a similar way as seasonal influenza is transmitted - that is through direct close contact with infected animals and people. For people in close contact with pigs, the recommendations to avoid infection are the same as for regular seasonal influenza - frequent hand washing, getting an annual flu shot, covering coughs and sneezes, and staying home when ill. Once contracted, the virus is spread by coughing and sneezing of infected people. It is not passed on by eating pork meat.

Human cases of swine influenza A (H1N1) virus infection have been identified in Mexico, the United States of America, Canada and New Zealand. There are reports that the virus has also been detected in the United Kingdom, Israel and France. At this stage no cases have been recorded in Australia.

The symptoms of swine flu are similar to seasonal influenza, with

infected individuals reporting flu-like symptoms of fever, aches and pains, sore throats, coughing and trouble breathing. Some people have also reported diarrhoea and vomiting.

There is no vaccine for Swine Influenza and treatment is the same as that of Seasonal Influenza.

At the moment, there are no restrictions on traveling to these

countries; however you may be asked questions related to your health status at border and immigration control in a number of countries, including entering Australia.

If you are planning travel to these areas, the following recommendations will help you to reduce your risk of infection.

1. Consider delaying your travel in areas of high infection.

2. Monitor the International Situation

3. Prepare for your trip before you leave

a. Make sure all your vaccinations are up to date, including seasonal

influenza vaccine if available.

b. Identify the health-care resources in the area(s) you will be

visiting.

4. If you are visiting an area affected by swine Influenza -

a. You are advised to reconsider travelling in areas affected by swine

influenza.

b. Pay attention to announcements from the local government.

c. Follow local public health guidelines, including any movement

restrictions and prevention recommendations.

5. Practice infection control measures to help stop the spread of

influenza -

a. Wash your hands often with soap and water. This removes germs from your skin and helps prevent diseases from spreading.

b. Use water less alcohol-based hand gels (containing at least 60% alcohol) when soap is not available and hands are not visibly dirty.

c. Cover your mouth and nose with a tissue when you cough or sneeze and put your used tissue in a wastebasket.

d. If you don't have a tissue, cough or sneeze into your upper sleeve, not your hands. Do not spit.

e. Wash your hands after coughing or sneezing, using soap and water or an alcohol-based hand gel.

coding errors

interesting article from ZDNet

Top 25 'most dangerous' coding errors revealed

By Tom Espiner, ZDNet UK
Wednesday, January 14, 2009 10:18 AM

Security experts from U.S. government agencies, multinational companies and academia have released a list of what they consider to be the 25 most critical errors made while coding software.

Participants from more than 30 organizations worked together to agree on the 25 "most dangerous" errors, the SANS Institute said in a statement on Monday. They included experts from the U.S. National Security Agency, the U.S. Computer Emergency Response Team (US-Cert), Mitre and the Sans Institute, as well as from Microsoft, Apple and Oracle.

The list was released so programmers can check their code for the most common errors that produce security vulnerabilities.

"[The list] is going to change the way organizations buy software, right away," Alan Paller, director of the Sans Institute, told ZDNet Asia sister's site ZDNet UK.

The top-two coding errors were improper input validation and improper encoding or escaping of output, according to Steven Christey of Mitre, who said those particular errors "earned the top rating for good reason".

"In 2008, hundreds of thousands of innocent, and generally trusted, Web pages were modified to serve malware by automated programs that burrowed into databases using SQL injection," Christey said in a statement. "The attack worked because countless programmers made the exact same [input validation and improper output encoding] mistakes in their software."

The full list of coding errors, and information on how to fix them, is available from the Sans Institute Web site.