The Search For Conversions

What is a browser?

It's all to easy to forget that quite often, people don't know and don't care. On several occasions when helping friends/family with issues over the phone, I've asked which browser they are using..and getting um's and ah's in response.

via threeminds

Aged News

Love this.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
End Times
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Jason Jones in Iran

Hunch and Bing

On first impressions I like Hunch. 

Having tried Bing for a while, I like the new presentation of results, but the quality of those results is still someway behind Google, though they are getting better over time.

eircom. Our annual meetup.

It was too good to last.  I almost made it into May of 2009 without my eircom line going down.  But this morning, it died again, along with a second residential line.  It seems like its becoming an annual event.

January 2007.  An eircom broadband experience.
January 2008.  eircom broadband.
April 2009.      To be continued.

Update: June 30th 2009.  After intermittent problems for the last few days, eircom told me yesterday that there is a fault on the line and now the line is dead again.

I'm old enough to remember the powers that be touting Ireland as having one of the best telecommunications networks in Europe.  How times have changed. 

Our Government have enough issues on their plate at the moment, all of them self inflicted, but it's time to end this situation.  Buy back eircom and provide it with the resources and leadership it requires to get our national communications infrastructure to where it needs to be.

Update: Gobsmacked. Less than an hour after reporting the fault, two eircom engineers arrived at the door in response. 

St. Vincent de Paul.

Most Irish people are familiar with the work of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul.  They exist to fight poverty.  This weekend, I listened to one of their members speak passionately about the rise in demand for their services and their concern about having enough resources to help people in the current deteriorating environment.

This prompted me to take a look at Google Insights for Search to see if there has been an increase in the number of searches. 

It seems that the volume of searches for the organisation in November was higher than it has been for at least the last four years.   These searches could be done by people wishing to help or donate.  I believe the SVP has run pretty effective campaigns in the past around this time of year.

On the other hand, these searches could be done by those seeking help, particularly given the demands of the commercially driven Christmas we have here.  

Only the SVP knows for sure, but given the fact that the number of searches declined during the boom years, my guess is that the very sharp jump in search volume last month is not a good sign.

If you'd like to, you can donate here.

Irish Pork and the Live Web

I ate some very tasty gourmet sausages on Saturday evening last, and on Sunday morning woke up to the news of the Irish Pork recall.   When something like this happens out of the blue, many turn to Google to find out what's happening. 

From Google Trends.

So we have a dramatic jump in searches for "Irish Pork" after the news broke.  But how easily did people find up to date information?   Google has got it right to a certain extent by featuring news from RTE and the Irish Times.  The Irish agency responsible, the Food Safety Authority of Ireland just sneaks into the first page with a link to a pretty technical and not consumer friendly notice.

They do however, have a well thought out, informative page on the Irish Pork recall, but it's not visible in Google and not that easy to find.

I think in a situation like this, it would have been helpful for consumers if the agency had created a simple Adwords campaign directing people to clear and regularly updated information pages. 

Incidents like this make you think about Google's ability to index and display what's happening in the live web.  I found a Twitter search for the same phrase "irish pork" to be more interesting and up to date.

New Segmentation feature from Google Analytics

Now that we are in a recession and everyone is looking at revenue and expenses and trying to work out which activites are worth continuing and which are not, Google is releasing a new feature in Google Analytics which will help with some of those decisions.

One of the disadvantages of using Google Analytics as your web analytics tool has been the absense of segmentation.  In other words, when creating a report it was difficult to look at just one subset of your data.

Now though, Google has announced that it is releasing just such a segmentation capability and it looks really good.     Take a look.  Avinash Kaushik has written a detailed post Google Analytics releases Advanced Segmentation with some very practical ideas on how you can use the feature.

On a related note, I really like this list from futurenow, The Ultimate Google Analytics, Hacks & Tricks Collection.

Google to drop ban on Gambling related Ads in the UK

NMA has a report that Google are about to allow gambling related ads on Adwords.  This is a significant development which will result in many additional millions of pounds and Euros flowing into Google's coffers from Europe.

Perhaps I'm a cynic, but I'm inclined to see this as a pragmatic reaction to the current advertising climate.  Lets face it, betting, casinos, bingo etc are enormous markets in the UK and Ireland.  You only have to study average EPC's of related merchants across the various affiliate networks to understand this. 

I can almost hear the Adwords campaigns being ramped up.

Could Google be forced to open up its ad platform?

As Google comes under increasing regulatory scrutiny, see for example, EU scrutinises Yahoo-Google deal, I wonder if they could eventually be forced to separate search and advertising so that the right to serve ads, particularly beside their search results is no long under the exclusive control of Google.

O2 Ireland. How Not to treat your customers.

O2 Ireland has provided my mobile phone service a long time. 

When I made a call about an urgent issue this morning, spent valuable time waiting to speak to someone, explain the issue and am promised by a customer service rep that he will look into it and call me back within five minutes, I did not expect to have to make another call three hours later to go through the same process all over again because I did not get that call back.

I especially, do not appreciate you saying, that sorry, there is no record of my earlier call.

Wake up O2.  In one day, you have lost the majority of goodwill that you have built up in over 10 years with this particular individual.

Update: 17th/9/08.  24 hours later, still no call back from O2 customer service.  Spend another 20 minutes on the phone between phone queue and speaking to customer rep no 3.  Am told that previous rep tried to call, but had not got the correct alternative phone number, despite me providing one.  I am again told I will get a call back within 2 hours.  We shall see.

Update: 17/9/08.   I get a call back within two hours, but the person that needs to deal with the issue is not available until the following morning.   I will get a call back then.

Update: 18/9/08.  16:18.  I have not received the promised call, so again call O2 customer care.  I call the 1909 number.  It rings out twice.  The call is answered on third attempt but am placed on hold until 16:36, at total of 18 minutes.  Am promised a call back within 5 minutes.   Now looking for the email address for complaints to Comreg.  What in the world has happened to O2?

I receive a call back approximately two hours later.   It seems that O2 is unable yet to help. I am promised a call back the following day, Friday 19th of September.

Update: 19/9/08.  I do not receive any call from O2 Customer Service.

Update 20/9/08.   18:00.  I have not received any call from O2 Customer Service.  Promises, Promises.

Update 21/9/08.  No call from O2 customer Service.

Update 22/9/08.  I wait until 16:18 for a call from O2 Customer Service, before giving in and calling again.  The person who is dealing with my issue in not available at the moment.  I will get a call back.

5 mins after the end of the latest call with O2, a courier arrives with a replacement phone.  I am lost for words.   

Final Upate.  I want to say thanks to Patrick in O2 for sorting this out for me.