benry blog

Canadian bookseller Chapters/Indigo has launched a new community site  a hybrid of Facebook, Bookcrossing, and a bit of a blog according to OneDegree. Reminds me more of Shelfari or that app in Facebook that everyone uses (forget the name as I removed it). More details over at OneDegree.

MailChimp’s live chat with a king (hilarious)

There’s a cross-site scripting bug in Google’s Urchin Analytics service that can be exploited to steal user credentials. An explanation of this vulnerability has been published by Adrian Pastor (hat-tip: ZDNet). UPDATE: Google’s removed the page from cache and the site doesn’t seem to connect.

Avinash in the Globe and Mail - Data give mines the shaft

The management philosophy of Jim Buckmaster - love the first three: 1) Listen to what users want. Try to make the site faster and better. 2) Hire good people. “We work hard trying to get the right kind of folks.” It pays off: they hardly ever leave. 3) No meetings, ever. “I find them stupefying and useless.”

Jesse Gross from Semphonic has a new blog called Web Analytics Tool Time. He has a nice new post on the art of web analytics reporting.

A really simple metric for measuring User Interfaces - gray out everything that the user doesn’t care about.

Jonathan Mendez checks out the performance of landing pages at various screen resolutions. Surprise! Things look good for those at 1024×768 (that’d be our site)

Jared tells us about how he does usability testing with 30 observers in a single room at once. Now that’s facilitator skills.

Disney scooped by Omniture — is this another nail in the coffin of Visual Sciences?

Visual Sciences settled their suit with Nielsen NetRatings — to the tune of $9M dollars! Crazy considering other vendors settled long time ago and for substantially less. Clears the way for any potential takeovers from a list of mystery suitors being reviewed currently.

RBC plans to hire six post-secondary student bloggers this fall for the bank’s soon-to-be launched peer-to-peer (p2p) information exchange site. RBC p2p will be an online forum where students can speak openly and honestly about their financial struggles and successes - is scheduled to go live by the end of August. The site’s content will be driven by students, while the six new student hires will manage discussions, blog about their own banking experiences, and share information and solutions about the money issues that matter most to undergrads and graduate students. An interesting spin on Wells Fargo’s The Student LoanDown and well in-line with RBC’s ramped up focus on student banking.

 Justin Cutroni (EpikOne) will be releasing his Google Analytics ShortCut book this month. A mere $10 for tons of tips and tricks. Get your copy.

Gary Angel’s (Semphonic) X Change Conference is around the corner. It offers a chance to “huddle” with some of analytics finest and is being held in the Napa Valley. Too bad I can’t make it.

WebTrends has started a “Move to ML2” program to lure over current HBX Analytics customers (likely those weary of a future takeover). WebTrends is offering up to a 100% license credit to switch from HBX Analytics to the newly announced WebTrends Marketing Lab 2. Do they know something that we don’t about who is going to be buying Visual Sciences? Hat tip: Manoj Jasra

Jim Sterne’s EMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit registration for Washington, DC is now open. Take a gander at the jam-packed agenda.

Track your mobile traffic. Web analytics company Maxsi eVisit Analyst mobile is apparently “the essential analysis system for owners, managers, developers and marketers of mobile optimized websites…and will help you to improve the performance of your mobile optimized website and enable you to increase the return on your investment in mobile operations and marketing.” Hat tip: Jim Sterne, Sterne Measures

UBC is going to be offering a Certificate in Web Intelligence this fall in conjunction with the University of California Irvine. 100% online. I’ve got myself on the list.

The latest version of Usability News from the Software Usability Research Lab at Wichita State University has a great piece on the Top Ten Mistakes of Shopping Cart Design Revisited: A Survey of 500 Top E-Commerce Websites.

If you are a WAA member, the Web Analytics Association is presenting a webcast with Eric Peterson entitled Web Analytics is Easy! scheduled for 12pm EST on Wednesday, August 29. The event is free, space is limited.

Speaking of the WAA, Robbin Steif posted an interesting article on Measuring Offline Conversions that’s worth a read for those wanting to track sales that fullfill offline.