I started tweeting right around when I started blogging on analytics – between May 8 and May 18, 2008. It kicked off professional public speaking, intensified my contributions to the WAA, and pushed me even more into a weak tie among diverse communities. I knew most of my followers by name, and met with most of them monthly. It was just a coincidence that 95% of them were in analytics. Even though I was living between Toronto, Calgary, Chicago, Vancouver and New York, Twitter was a localized, central hub. I was in 5 places at once. Twitter was a place where conversations happened out loud, in public, and other people who were interested in what we were interested in could[…]
IBM has announced its acquisition of Netezza, a datawarehousing and BI company, for $1.7 billion. There’s much more to come. A majority of the human beings are generating machine readable data about themselves. Just check out the mobile penetration numbers and see for yourself. Even in developing countries they’re generating huge trails of data. And while there wont’ be 50 billion phones on the planet, every human being will have access to a mobile phone very soon. More advanced devices and experiences will generate ever more data. A majority of human beings in the developed world are generating more machine readable data than ever before. Whereas the Internet has always been social, the relative transaction cost has now come down[…]
“If you’re not paying for it, you’re not the customer. You’re the product being sold.” -Andrew Lewis, August 26, 2010. Andrew’s statement is accurate. It’s well worth considering.
Eric Peterson kicked off a debate about a Web Analytics Code of Ethics. You can read about it here. Here’s my comment: 1. What is the maximum length (word count, characters, bullet points) that a Code of Ethics can be before it becomes ineffective? 2. What is the minimum and maximum lengths (word count, characters, bullet points) that a Code of Ethics has to be before it becomes ineffective at PR-marketing objectives? 3. Should a Code of Ethics make explicit references to technology types? If the purpose is to create an actionable Code of Ethics, and if practitioners are going to live it, then it has to be compact, memorable and timeless. It is beyond my capability to remember and[…]
There’s a DRY principle in programming, and one that is pervasive in RAILS-land: Don’t Repeat Yourself. The same should go for everybody. From commenting, blogging, to writing books. Repeating somebody’s work in its entirety is pretty unnecessary when a citation would do. What you build off others, how you do intellectual parkour and create something new out of many things old, is what’s valuable. You advance everybody that much further and faster by doing so. And a gap in the literature doesn’t always need to be filled. There might be a very good reason for such a gap. It’s finally time for me to make an original contribution because I have something original to say. There’s a gap that needs[…]
Hamel’s counterpoint to my previous post on the Facebook LIKE button is up. Check out both posts for detail. If you want the Cole Notes: Chris: “It’s not all spam. But it can be spam. And some marketers will spam. Some marketers will provide utility. There will be a net positive over time – like email.” Dave: “It’s all spam. You clicking the Like button generates NewsFeed spam. Screw your interests, Chris. Because I don’t care if you Like something.” Fair enough Dave. I see your point and I understand it. In general, like people clump alike. I tweet stuff all the time aimed at a very specific focus area. All of it is solid gold and incredibly valuable to[…]
It’s not generally well known that when you click the Facebook ‘Like’ button on a website, you’re giving the author of that Button permission to message you in a newsfeed. So, if you LIKED a bingo card while shopping, then the owner of that site has the opportunity to message you when it goes on sale by way of your newsfeed. It’s a point brought up by Patio11 (Patrick McKenzie) over at Bing Card Creator. He’s a great entrepreneur, and I dare say, analytical thinker. His concern is that this functionality will enable marketers to spam people. It’s a valid concern. The world is filled with absolutely stupid and inconsiderate people. Just look at what they’ve done to email: It’s[…]
I’m not certain that many people really understand what private browsing it – at least based on my interpretation data published by Mozilla Labs. The study is awesome and you should check it out. I’ve been over what private browsing really is. It isn’t what I think what the general population thinks it is. (I don’t know what people are really thinking – but I can attempt to infer it by observing aggregate behavior.) Come with me and dive in. The Mozilla Labs data indicates that private browsing activations spike at noon, with subsequent spikes around 5pm, 9pm, and shortly after midnight. The median duration of staying in private browsing is 10 minutes, with 50% of the cases falling between[…]
Anybody who has seen their torrents throttled over the years knows that net neutrality really doesn’t exist, regardless if it is the law of the land. The argument against net neutrality – the notion of equality in experience – has been long trotted out. The argument goes that you have 1 person in 100 that is responsible for gobbling up 80% of the bandwidth – and they’re degrading the experience for the other 99. So, to preserve the experience for everybody minus 1, the ISP simply must place curbs on that one person. Such framing is designed to exclude the notion that the pie isn’t strictly fixed and metering isn’t essential. ISP’s are incented to maximize revenue by generating scarcity[…]
We ought to tell stories with data. Stories are hugely effective for a number of reasons. They’re easy to tell. They’re easy to remember. They’re easy for other people to remember. They’re easy for other people to tell. They’re a very fluid idea transmission device. They’re rewarding to craft – especially with data. The antagonist doesn’t always have to be human. In fact, it might be nature itself that’s the antagonist. And you can cast whoever you want as the protagonist. In sum – perhaps if we want some of our communication to be more effective from time to time, we ought to tell stories. Tell me, do you think it’s appropriate for an analyst to craft stories?