by psionmark on March 24, 2008
I this week finally received my long awaited invitation to Reinvigorate, the forever in Beta web site reporting too.
If you’re a regaular reader, you’ll know about my obsession with web site stats and hence how my heart went a fluttering on receipt of the invite. Yes, I know, I really do need to get out more.
Anyway, here’s what you get:
You get more than that, obviously, but I’ve found this the most useful view of the stats so far. In fact, as far as checking today and comparing with yesterday, it’s about the best view of all the stats packages I’ve tried so far. And therein lies the problem with web site stats packages. This particular Reinvigorate view is great for that specific data, in the same way that Google Analytics wins hands down for me for showing me the overall trend of visitors, and in the same way that GetClicky wins hands down in showing visitors hitting the sites in real-time. Reinvigorate has a Mac and Windows client you can download to watch visitors in real-time, but it gives you nowhere near the amount of data you get from GetClicky’s Spy view. What do you mean I should have better things to do than watch real-time visitor data?
So, if someone comes up with something that’s a cross between Reinvigorate, Google Analytics and GetClicky (oh, and Statcounter for that matter), let me know!
by psionmark on March 23, 2008
I’ve been experimenting a little with Ning lately. If you’ve not heard of Ning before, they’re a “Social Network In A Box”. You can knock up a reasonably full-featured Social Network site on a subject of your choice in about 5 minutes.
I’ve got a couple going at the moment as companion sites to my blogs. You can see the diversity of the themes available on the two I’ve set up at The Chess Player and World Of Simulation.
Both feature a forum, so it can save you the trouble of setting one up on your main site. I’ve also included the RSS feed from my main sites, so you’ve got ready made self-promotion thrown in, too. You can easily add a photo/video gallery. And you can set the whole thing up so you have to authorise all submissions before they make it to the site.
They’ve recently released a new “version”, which includes additional themes and redesigned sections such as forums, groups etc.
One thing that is missing, even following the update - and a lot of people over on the Ning forum are requesting it - is a chat module. Sure, you can easily embed something like a Meebo room, but it doesn’t blend very well and is not “connected” to the Ning network as such. People still have to log-in seperately.
The basic network creation is all free, but supported by Google ads. You can pay extra and have these removed and include your own ads if you like. You can also, for a small fee, attach the Network to your own domain and remove any references to Ning.
So, will it last? Too early for me to tell for my own sites yet, as I only have a handful of members and they’ve only been going for a few days. However, the number of networks being created on Ning tells me they’re here to stay. As a simple and quick method of adding social networking facilities to your site, they’re pretty hard to beat at the price.
by psionmark on March 17, 2008
You may have noticed a new addition in my sidebar that goes by the name of Spottt. Spottt is, by any other word, a banner exchange. You upload your 125 x 125 ad - which seems to be the format of choice at the moment - then add a bit of code to your site. For every 2 every impressions of the Spottt ad on your own site, you gain a credit which will show your own ad on another site carrying the Spottt code.
I’m still in two minds about it. It takes up a fair bit of site space and it’s not bringing in much traffic on this site. Having said that, it’s bringing in a reasonable number on one of my other blogs, so I guess, like most of these things, it’ll have a different impact on different sites.
If you want to give it a go, they’re offering 1,000 free credits, but only for today. There’s nothing in this for me, as they’ve already given me my 1,000 extra credits 
To get your free credits, head over to Spottt and enter the promotional code SHAMROCK when signing up.
Let me me know how you get on!
by psionmark on March 16, 2008
I dearly love my MacBook Pro, but one thing I’m struggling to find is a good blog editor. By good, I mean as good as Windows Live Writer.
I’ve tried many blog editors for the Mac, but none offer the ease of use and functionality of WLW. I’ve been using Qumana for quite a while and I think it’s the best of the bunch, but it really doesn’t like it when you write a post and save it for later use. At best, it seems to lose all the formatting and, at worst, it loses half the post. Not good.
So, I’m now writing this with WLW under Windows XP using VMWare’s Fusion for Mac. And it works a treat. I’m using it in Unity mode, so WLW just appears as a window in my lovely shiny OSX like any other application.
Yes, it means going back to Windows daily for my posts, but I can live with that with Fusion. At least until something better comes along native to the Mac.
So, over to you! Let me know about all those lovely Mac blog editors that I haven’t found yet!
by psionmark on March 15, 2008
I’m not sure whether this is good news, or bad, but my lad (who’s 10) has decided to turn his hand to blogging!
He’s blogging on the subject of the stupidity of various decisions at his school. I’ve told him not to use any real names or places!
I know I’m biased, but it is funny (I’ve had a word with him about the typos). He’d be delighted if I could get a few visitors for him, so head over there now and put a smile on his face I’m pretty sure he doesn’t yet know how to track where visitors have come from, although I could be wrong.
