I came across another interesting article on the Google Blog that allows you to harness the power of Google Analytics.

Would you believe me if I said you don’t need a Ph.D. to understand your website data? No? Believe it. Free tools like Google Analytics can help simplify website data so that you can better understand what visitors are doing when they arrive on your site.

One of the coolest innovations in understanding your website has been to provide delightful metrics on your web data so that you can make direct changes to your site. In lesson one of our series on The Power of Measurement, we will learn about bounce rate and how understanding it can improve your website.

You may be used to reading about how many “hits” a site or a page has received. But reporting a “hit” meant something back in 1985 when it was essentially a pageview (the number of times your webpage was viewed). Today, you will find that each web page gets many “hits,” rendering the metric meaningless. While the number of “hits” a page received used to be the best measure of success, we now have more in-depth and detailed metrics to analyze the performance of our web pages.

Bounce rate is insightful because from the perspective of a website visitor, it measures this phenomenon: “I came; I puked; I left.” (OK, technically it also means the number of sessions with just one pageview.) While metrics like visitors show the number of people who came to your site, bounce rate will tell you how many of those people were unimpressed and left your site without taking any action (not even dignifying the site with a single click!).

Bounce rate has these attributes:
1) It is really hard to misunderstand. It measures the number of people who landed on your site and refused to give you even one single click!
2) It is available in most web analytics tools, including our own Google Analytics.
3) It is quick and easy to use. Bounce rate will help you understand where and how to make changes on your website in under an hour.

Read the full article here.

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Google recently unveiled an application for the iPhone that could be used even when the phone wasn’t connected to any network.  This is great for working in an environment that does not provide you access networks, for example on a plane.
This is definitely a huge step for iPhone users as it will allow users to perform a lot of functions that Apple does not have feature for.

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The latest news surrounding the multi-touch controversy is that Apple approached the Android team and specifically asked them not to implement a multi touch feature on the phone.

This decision to accept the request seems a little strange when you consider the fact that these are two competing companies in the mobile space. However on taking a closer look at things Google seems to have side-stepped potential litigation that could have delayed the launch of the G1 for a considerable period of time.

Palm’s Pre on the other hand does have multi-touch capability and based on the articles we’ve been seeing for a while Apple is most certainly going to get into a legal war with them.

Google also has a decent relationship with Apple over services and its possible that Apple might allow them to use the multi-touch feature on their phones in the future.

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Microsoft Corp. is looking at bolstering its service offerings on the mobile platform the most important of which would be an online shop catering to software distribution. This is most definitely to counter the iPhone store that has been doing brilliantly since its launch last year.

The much awaited Windows Mobile 6.5 should be out shortly as well however how it’s going to fare against the iPhone and Google Android is to be seen.  Even Palm is out with its Pre that many people are looking forward to. Smart phones have evolved from the pure business tools they once were to what we see today. Phones being used for so much more than checking mail and calling people.

The biggest news ofcourse is the MyPhone service that Microsoft is talking about. Which is more or less along the lines of what the iPhone offers users today. The biggest difference ofcourse would be the fact that it will have a feature like MobileMe that the company will not charge users for. ( Apple charges $99  a year )

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Google unveiled a new feature yesterday that will allow users to open multiple viewing panes without having to open another browser window. This is a great feature for people who have multiple email accounts with Gmail.

This is what Google software engineer Octavian “Vivi” Costache had to say in his blog post .

I’m seriously into filters and labels. All the email I get related to Flash goes under my “flash” label, everything about paragliding goes under “flying,” and they all skip my inbox because that’s how I like to stay organized. But when new email arrives I have to switch to the “flash” label first, then click on “paragliding,” etc. I wanted a way to see it all at once.

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httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-Oq-9enE-k

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Yahoo needs to start looking for a new direction to grow and this new search tool seems to be just the opportunity to focus on an area that Google seems to have given up on.This new avenue comes after a realization that web surfers use search engines not just to find sites but to conduct research.

The product detects when a person appears to be doing research on a specific topic and offers to catalog the findings in a special window within the Yahoo search page.

Given Yahoo’s low investor confidence there has to be a lot of buy-in before they proceed on any investment, but given the fact there could be a high pay-off this new push might be worth it.

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For those of you interested in hosting News stories on your Website Google News has come out with a widget that will allow you to do just that.

You can choose from a range of topics to dispay.

Top Headlines

World

Business

Nation

Science & Technology

Elections

Politics

Entertainment

Sports

Health

For more information, check out their  post on the AJAX Search API Blog or dive directly into the wizard to automatically generate the code for you.

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