The twitterverse and other social networks are a buzz with the latest news.  I came across the headline via New York Times feed.  (Ref post – http://ow.ly/aabPD)

I have been using Instagram for a long time and consider the originally iPhone-only app as one of my favorites.  I think this is a good move for Facebook, good move for Instagram makers, maybe not a great move for the app itself or app-fans.

Good for Facebook
Earlier this month Instagram released the android version of the app thus expanding it’s market-share, to an exploding meteoric pace.  Inclusively, @Forbes tweeted: Instagram…Adds a Million Android Users in 12 Hours & Raising $50 Million http://t.co/Al1su2N0.   Million of non-Facebook users are already on the this sticky-friendly app.  The competition for social-photo-share was getting fierce.  Was teh competition worth $1B rhough?  Yes, because of revenue potential as well.  The monetization potential is strong considering the large consumer base.  In addition, you would have to assume it will be very easy to market and entice non-Facebook users to become Facebook consumers and the back and forth integration between the platforms will continue to grow the already large online photo-sharing behavior. Today Instagram sharing is one-sided from Instagram onto Facebook but I can easily envision Facebook photos shared on the Instagram user feed.

Good for Instagram Makers
Founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger had previously been approached for purchase  but the price and timing was obviously not right.  All that has changed today – could you turn away from $1B? Aside from coveted purchase price of one BILLION dollars, this gives the makers the ability to create other products.  Early news is said that Instagram will remain a separate company, I’m not sure if the makers will remain as advisory consultants… I doubt it.  High expectations are set for these two, based on the success of Instagram. If they follow their own recipe of usability and functionality I hope to not be disappointed.

Not so Good for Instagram App & Fans?
Perhaps no immediate changes for the app itself who knows how long that will last.  Zuckerberg posted in his own Facebook timeline to plan to keep things the same…

We think the fact that Instagram is connected to other services beyond Facebook is an important part of the experience. We plan on keeping features like the ability to post to other social networks, the ability to not share your Instagrams on Facebook if you want, and the ability to have followers and follow people separately from your friends on Facebook.

Change is inevitable even if the purchase didn’t take place. The difference now I suspect is with a Facebook focus and quick revenue push. Expect to see changes that will bring them revenue to offset that cost. Probably ads in between pictures, must view ad-clips for multiple picture post, app-download fee for advance features perhaps use of Facebook bucks/credits within the app. In my opinion, one thing for sure if they lose the small, simple-quick easy to use app experience that made Instagram the photo-share app of choice they will lose users. With news of the buyout many disgruntled users threatened to delete their Instagram accounts.  I also wonder if the privacy settings and account management woes that Facebook constantly battles will migrate over. This news should NOT make an immediate difference to the majority of current users.  The concern over privacy should be void by the mere fact on posting things online.  That should be another discussion we should have in another post. I’m not canceling my Instagram account anytime soon, which by the way feel free to  follow/look up exceliweb.

Let me know your thoughts as these are just my two cents.

The other day I was lobbying to get a more extensive A/B-Multivariate solution something more robust that Google Optimizer.  My email began as a short plea with business rational to a semi-white paper with buisiness cost/benefit projections.  After coming across the write-up again I thought I would share (removing the specific business estimates of course) but the business case itself is worth understanding…

There are many times when businesses across the board make updates to their website(s) based on design preference, a gut feel, believing the message content ‘sounds’ better or by other subjective reasons.  These changes no matter how small can make huge impacts to revenue, traffic, and brand reputation.  Unfortunately it may take longer than desired to find out the impact from the change was a negative one.

The use of a multivariate testing tool can be a big advantage when looking to optimize websites providing many benefits as detailed below.

Informed Decisions
A multivariate testing tool allows business owners such as marketing and product teams to setup A/B and multi-page test to be better able to make informative decisions for which design/content to use based on the data collected during tests.  Before rolling out a design change to all website visitors, setting up A/B tests within a fraction of the visitor population allows business owners to collect and analyze impact, mitigating any negative results and potentially identifying any stop-gaps.  The use of a multivariate tool provides real-time data so a business owner can stop a test whenever any negative trending is detected.  Furthermore a clear ‘winner’ can be selected based on success metrics captured within the tool’s reports. Once the choice is made based on data, the desired change can be rolled out to the full visitor population with better assurance on performance expectations.

As part of the test set-up business owners can define success metrics for each test campaign and determine the optimal campaign duration to attain closer accuracy in reading results, measure performance against the predefined goals and reuse success goals for future test. Multivariate testing tools include reporting as a core feature, this combined with segmentation capabilities offer a better opportunity to analyze the test result data.

Segmentation Targeting
Another benefit gained from using a multivariate tool is the ability to set-up various segments of website users based on a wide variety of parameters, such as geo-location, user input, browser/system settings, cookies, time, traffic and more. This functionality is specific to these tools and a feature that they are designed to provide business owners more testing flexibility, moreover free/less expensive tools such as Google Optimizer. There are times when a break out of traffic isn’t enough to make an informed decision and customer action is needed before deciding what landing page should be presented. A multivariate tool enables this scenario and can provide various landing page options based on the actions defined in the test.

Examples:
The design for a price package selection can be customized to various site-specific parameters such as what product, zip code or state a user enters on a website so the design is catered to that user’s point of reference.

The marketing/sale message on a customer’s up-sell page can be crafted to display differently according to what items a customer adds to their ecommerce shopping cart. Thus giving business owners the ability to determine which items are better suited for increase revenue opportunity.

Presentment of a different landing page for a return visitor or a customer that has already made a purchase within a certain timeframe compared to a brand new user can be tested before selecting the best one based on conversion results.

Speed
Another advantage a multivariate testing tool provides is to the ability to test several designs at once.  Without spending for developing functionality or use of a testing tool, a typical design test would require a design to launch based on subjective preference, awaiting results to be gathered then time spent comparing the results with previous data, which may have other factors contributing to performance.  The timing for all these steps can run into months before a business owner can test a second design.  With the use of a multivariate testing tool, the design variations are easily set-up to be tested against one another with use of a current design as a control, thus saving several months before choosing the best design overall.

Once set up technically across the website pages the ability to run test is indefinite as long as the tool and license is available.  On average a typical test may run three weeks. However the date range for a test campaign is determined by the business owners.  If desired, another test can run immediately a running test is scheduled to end.   The option to run test campaigns can simultaneously is also easily feasible, as long as there are clear distinction between success goals and un-shared page user flow variations.

Examples:
Concurrent tests – Two customer segment test can be run – one for a buyer test the other for a seller, whereby the buyer and seller path are different and the success for each is purchase of different products.

Optimizing campaigns – Development of the next campaign landing page can be developed while a test is in running mode. Once a winner is identified the next challenger campaign can be added to a test to begin and compared to the previous winner.

Performance improvements on conversion can vary, sometimes quoted to average between 5-10%. There are also other case studies where conversion percentages doubled. Results vary and are unique to each test, target test population and how well optimized the desired website or site sections already are. What is certain is that a multivariate tool enables business owners to make better informed, timely decisions on the website changes made and have improved accuracy in the expected results.

Below are a few other sample tests  that are easily desired to test within a multivariate tool:

• Module placements – Test for placement positions and copy aimed to improve conversions.
• Marketing Copy – Test marketing copy aimed to increase traffic.
• New site sections/products – Test interest of products to gain insights before rolling out to large population there by launching an improved vetted product for better positioning for success.
• Homepage redesigns – test out new look and feel as well as content versions aimed to improve traffic acquisition and conversion to buyer & seller paths.
• Funnel Tests – Series of path analysis tests (purchase, product selection, content sections, contact forms) optimization test aimed to improve conversions.

I am a definite advocate for the use of testing a moajor site change and having a tool to provide the data to make an informed decision.  For additional information for vendor tools reviewed and feedback on them or strategy please feel free to comment or submit a contact request.

Wi-Fi + 3G 1st Generation

Height: 9.50 inches (241.2 mm)
Width: 7.31 inches (185.7 mm)
Depth: 0.34 inch (8.8 mm)
Weight: 1.35 pounds (613 g)
Storage capacity: 64 GB flash
Memory: 512 MB DDR2 RAM[12]
Display 1024 × 768 px 132 PPI 4:3 aspect ratio 9.7 in (25 cm) diagonal XGA, LED-backlit IPS LCD[9]
Graphics : PowerVR SGX 535 GPU[13]

APRIL FOOLS!!

hahah! I can’t believe you clicked over to view this page. Even though it’s a first generation IPAD I still can’t bare to part with it, sorry.

Hope You Enjoy the Holidays & Have a Happy New Year!

Setting up analytics to monitor website performance and marketing efforts is one of the most crucial and beneficial things you can do to your website. Many host providers provide out-of-the-box analytics tools. Make sure you are getting enough from those metric measures.

What to look for? The obvious is to track volume, visits and uniques. Sometime this is the only thing that is offered from the boxed auto inclusions from your host-provider. That is NOT enough. Sure you what to know how many customers are visiting your site as well as returning. You need to take a deeper look!

What is driving those customers to visit and navigate through your site? Here is where, referrals, keyword analysis, and campaign management are key. Getting insight into this information can help your future marketing as well as usability efforts, by learning from your analytic trends. The data collected from what ever analytic tool you decide to use should allow you to create a dashboard of key information you should monitor at a regular basis. Some advance set-up can also allow you to view path analysis to capture drop points. Discovering these can help you solve for navigation issues, customer confusion or improve your marketing sell message.

There is so much you can do by taking time to collect important data, analyzing and more importantly taking action as a result of your findings. I cannot stress enough on it’s importance. I’ve worked with several corporate analytic applications as well as smaller and sometime free-based apps. If you cannot afford those robust corp programs, don’t dismay. There are many options out there.

Since I moved from hosting providers last weekend I am now revisiting my choices. I’m off my soap-box!

This weekend was spent moving the new site to it’s new home.  After spending several hours trying to install wordpress, which seriously shouldn’t take that long just to set-up the install – I finally figured out that my hosting provider was not the ideal environment for my business.

The previous version of this site was built off static html pages, a few scripts and flash files but for the most part a non-scaleable architecture.  After several years with my hosting provider, I ended the relationship.  The good thing was that I used another hosting provider for my other sites.  I tested my install with the other provider and sure enough all worked peachy!

If a hosting solution is not able to grow with your needs and expectations you have to throw that loyalty out the door!  I opted for a new provider who is recommended by wordpress and prices seem fair.  Hopefully this relationship will last!  It is new, but so far so good.

I’ve been struggling to decide what platform cms to use for my sites.  I had installed Drupal for one of mysites but couldn’t figure out the add profile component.  I then unistalled and switched to Joomla, which I can’t say has been easier to set up with all the components that I need.

I decided to tryout wordpress for my freelance site. God knows it needed an update, considering I hadn’t touched it in more than four years.

So here I am, after a few hours of setup and deciding on design, plugins and structure wordpress has been a breath of fresh air with it’s ease of use.  I may search what other plugins are available and use for all my other sites I need to launch.

What do you use?  If it can be setup easily and scaleable for additional functionality, let me know!!