Wordle is a great service which will take an RSS feed from your site (or anybody else’s site) and convert it to an image. Larger words are found more often, smaller words are found less.
Here are a couple of examples.
From our very own blog (http://www.merrellgroup.com/blog/feed/):
And from my personal site (http://www.joshuarcraig.net/feed/):
Go try it out for yourself!
Heather Gapusan joins Howard, Merrell & Partners as a digital analyst in the Interactive Services department which has expanded greatly over the past few years. In her role, Gapusan will develop and help manage interactive strategies for clients, as well as gather and analyze digital results to help dictate future strategies involving interactive activities.
Welcome to HM&P, Heather!
See the announcement here.
Finally! Google has added annotations to Analytics. This is the one feature I’ve been asking for since I began using GA. It allows you to leave small shared or private notes on the over-time graph. So now I won’t have to refer to the media flowchart to see when certain banner ad campaigns were launched or changed or when a change was made to a website and for what reason. This will make it much easier for the entire team to see those changes how they are influencing traffic patterns and usage of those websites.
Check out the video below for an overview:
New work has been added to the agency website for Cordura, Dixie and Precise Dog Food. It’s good stuff. Nice job to all who played a part in its creation. Check it out when you have a moment at www.merrellgroup.com
Check out this video of Zugara’s online augmented reality and motion capture shopping app. It’s relatively crude but the potential is incredible. Imagine this app when the technology matures a little. Then end of brick and mortar stores? Well, maybe not. But very cool nonetheless.
The IAB has posted a document specifiying standard definitions for Social Media Metrics. From their page:
This document specifies standard definitions for Social Media Metrics. With the rapid growth seen in the Social Media space in recent years, many publishers and vendors are offering supplemental performance metrics to their clients as additional ways of gauging ad effectiveness. This document defines these supplemental metrics in more detail in an effort to stimulate growth by making the reporting of metrics for agencies and advertisers across multiple media partners more consistent. The IAB hopes that all players in the Social Media space will coalesce around these metrics to encourage growth through consistency.
Social media speaks to a new way of understanding how individual users are interacting with branded content via online publishers, social networks, blogs, and applications. Before the proliferation of social media, the primary way for users to receive advertiser information was one-way. Social Media has changed the paradigm of how people consume online media.
The most profound difference is that Social Media has added a participatory element where an individual not only receives information but has the ability to take part in the creation and distribution of content. Furthermore, social media tools have enabled a dialogue and discovery around this content. It is the combination of these unique and appealing aspects that defines the true value of social media.
Value is derived not only from the primary distribution of branded content but also the additional interactions that result as users share, participate with, and propagate advertising content. In the end, social media adds another layer of value through its ability to engage users and create additional reach.
The current Social Media landscape can be broken into three distinct categories:
* Social Media Sites
* Blogs
* Widgets & Social Media ApplicationsThis document first defines each of the categories, and then defines the supplemental metrics specific to each.
