Web Development Blog » Top Web Development Blog Entries for 2009 | Web Development Blog – Heidi Cool – Cleveland, Ohio

Top Web Development Blog Entries for 2009

Heidi Cool — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 17:29:55 +0000

T'is the season for reflecting on the past, developing top 10 lists and participating in typical new year blog memes. To that end I thought I'd share the most popular posts—and active commentators—for 2009.

There are a variety of ways one can measure such things, so I've chosen two methods to select the top 10 blog posts and have included all posts—not just those written in 2009. As it turns out, five entries made both lists, while 10 appeared only on one list. Three of the entries this year were also included last year in, 2 Top 5 Lists = 1 Top Ten List: My most read Web Development Blog entries from 2008.

Happy New Year from snow covered Cleveland!

Top Commentators for 2009

While I'm perfectly happy to write for the sake of writing, it's nice to know that you folks are out there reading, reTweeting and commenting. Some posts garner more comments than others, but it's always fun to see the conversations evolve. The following list shows the most active commentators for 2009.

This list was compiled using the Show Top Commentators plug-in. I included more than 10 because some people made the same number of comments. While a few of the people on the list are those who may have stumbled upon the blog via search or by following a link, a good portion of these folks are friends I've made through social media such as Pownce and Twitter. The list also includes fellow contributors to BlogHighEd, some of whom I've had the pleasure of meeting in person.

These connection points offer a good example of how social networking works. We listen more closely to the people we're more connected with, thus we may comment on their blogs more often and vice versa. Our Tweets and Facebook updates also help alert our friends when we have new entries. I subscribe to several of the blogs penned by the folks on this list, but I'll often see their posts in Twitter (and click through to read them) before I see them in Google Reader. There are some excellent writers in the bunch so I encourage you to explore their sites.

I'd like to thank all of the commentators for contributing their ideas to the blog this year, but in particular I'd like to thank Tom Goering of NavyCS. Tom started commenting on the blog several years ago. We've since connected on both StumbleUpon and Twitter, but I think it's rather cool that he's kept up with the blog over time and continued to be an active commentator.

Thank you Tom and all the other readers and commentators who continue to give me reasons to blog. Happy New Year! - Heidi

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Social Media is People (but more enriching than Soylent Green*)

Heidi Cool — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 05:43:09 +0000

Everyone wants to know how to take advantage of social media. Whether it's to promote a business or an academic program, it's not unusual to hear people as, "How should we be using Twitter?" or "What should we do with Facebook?" The questions often focus on the tools, but as I've mentioned before, in Social Media: Your Interactive Information Resource, social media is about making connections—human connections. While this has been apparent to me for sometime, it's become increasingly clear over the past month. So rather than writing a typical how-to or advice article, today I'll just tell you about two recent events that really drive this message home.

Heidi thinks the veil between the 'brick and mortar' world and the 'cyber world' becomes more elusive each day.

That's what I wrote as my Facebook status message when I returned home from the Cleveland Social Media Club party on December 10. As the name suggests the Cleveland SMC is "a community for the champions of Social Media and those seeking to learn." (If you live in Northeast Ohio and work with, or are interested in, social media you should join.) What makes this group different from many online communities is the regional nature of it. We're all here so we can actually meet in person. As such they've already had several events, but this was the first one that I attended.

My friends tell me that I'm no longer shy, but I am an introvert, so I have to admit I was just a wee bit nervous. Although I knew a few people in the group—either in person or online—many were unknown, or at best vague cyber-acquaintances. Thus I wasn't sure how well I'd handle the small talk. As it turns out it wasn't a problem. I knew the host, Dave Stack, from the real world, his best friend is friends with one of my best friends, I'd previously met a few folks from a Cleveland bloggers meet-up, and George Nemeth was there and George knows everybody and is more than happy to make introductions. Within no time I felt as at ease as I would have with people I'd known much longer.

I met some great people and look forward to seeing them again at a future event. But I don't have to wait until the next event to continue the conversations. Members of Cleveland SMC can friend each other and converse on that site, but we also post our other profiles there. Since the event I've connected with several of them on Facebook, Flickr and Twitter. And thus the conversations continue.

It doesn't matter if/when we meet again face-to-face. It doesn't matter if one person prefers Twitter and another prefers Facebook. Once the connection is made it can be continued on any one or more of the online services available. Cleveland Social Media Club (on Ning) provides an information hub, but it's also enabled us to easily create multiple redundant pathways to one another. Thus, if one service goes down, the connections aren't lost, we still have other channels available.

When a service goes down: the demise of Pownce

While multiple channels are available, Pownce was my social media tool of choice. Alas, in early December, Leah Culver announced that Pownce would be shutting down on December 15.

Pownce was the service that hooked me on social media. It's where I learned that you could forge real connections online. Pownce gave me access not only to my peers but also to leaders in the field. If I went to Pownce with an idea I had about a Web project I wasn't getting feedback from just anybody. I was getting feedback from people in all areas of the business—ranging from the managing director of Octane Interactive, Wayne Smallman, to the lead designer at Digg, Daniel Burka. Pownce was an incredible resource.

Of course, it wasn't all about work. Powncers shared photos, absurd videos and thought-provoking articles while also conversing about everything from politics to bacon. My friends group contained liberals and republicans, atheists and born-agains and people from several different continents and cultures. But we had our geekiness in common, so everyone played nicely together in the sandbox. As we shared media and stories, personal experiences and jokes we got to know each other on many levels, much as one does in the brick and mortar world.

By the time December rolled around we'd become a pretty tight community. Then we heard about the shutdown. As you can imagine, the community reeled. Where would we go? What would we do? Sure we're on Twitter, but how can you discuss global warming or share pierogie recipes in 140 characters? It was clear, the sky was falling and there was very little we could do about it. Or was there?

A community comes together

All gnashing of teeth and wailing aside (and yes there was a lot of that) one of the first things people did was to start announcing where else they could be found. Pownce always made it easy to post our other profile addresses on the site, but now people were indicating where their primary addresses would be. People posted their addresses for Twitter, Facebook and Friendfeed. People shared e-mails. One fellow declared that he preferred IM and shared 5 different ways to connect with him that way.

We had this information, we had the ability to download our data, but it was clear that we were scattering into the wind. In my panic, I decided I needed to create a new, possibly temporary home for us, someplace that would still exist after December 15, where we could continue to share our contact information. Given that I was already familiar with Ning, I created Pownce Refugees, a place to keep the community alive after Pownce shutdown.

At the time I really wasn't certain about my long term goals, I just needed something I could launch quickly. I configured the page to use the colors from the Pownce home page, enabled some features that I thought might be useful and spread the word. As I and others started playing with it I added RSS feeds of Pownce mentions on Twitter, the Pownce Exiles Room on FriendFeed, the Pownce Exiles group on Vox, Pownce in the news and so forth. This way I thought we could use this page to keep track of Pownce-related activity elsewhere.

The next thing I did was to start creating groups for Pownce theme days. On Pownce we would often post content related to a day's theme. Thus we had Music Video Monday, Wordle Wednesday, Foto Friday and so forth. It sounds silly, but it was a good way to get new people involved as it gave them ideas on things to post. When you are new to social networking, it can be intimidating, but theme days provided some great starting points.

As I was busy priming the pump with groups and content, people started joining. Then they told other people to join. They spread the word on Twitter and other places, and within no time we had more than 100 members.

100? That's not much, Twitter has 6 million users

100 isn't much (we're now at 139), but it was enough to begin a new community. It was also enough to catch the attention of the Ning staff. As a result of our rapid growth, they featured us on the Ning Blog in an article entitled, Former Pownce members find a new home.

This was actually a fairly major accomplishment as Ning is a rather large enterprise. In April 2008 there were over 230,000 networks on Ning, and they were growing at over 1,000 per day. Only 3-4 are featured on the blog in any given day.

The other good news was our traffic. I created Pownce Refugees on December 1, and installed the analytics on December 6. As of December 15 (Pownce shut-down) we had

933 unique visitors
1,870 total visits
12,836 page views (6.86 pages per visit)

By way of comparison this blog was 20 months old by the time it started generating that level of traffic.

Our traffic sources also told an interesting story.

56.2% were direct traffic, meaning members (or others) who already knew the address,
40.11% were from referring sites and
only3.69% were from search engines.

The top referring sites were Pownce, Stumbleupon, Gmail, Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook (I'd created a Facebook page for the site), Plurk and Ustream.

Those of you who check stats regularly know that this is atypical. Search engine traffic often plays a much larger role, often times 50% or more. But this was a social media site, marketed through social media to active social media users. It worked well because we (I credit our early adopters for spreading the word) were focused on a very specific niche (Pownce users), who were well-versed in social media tools, and we had a deadline that affected everyone involved.

Where are we now?

Since then we've lost a bit of momentum and probably need to refocus marketing on community building strategies. But traffic is steady and we have a core of regular visitors. As of yesterday we've had a total of:

3,000 unique visitors
5,193 total visits
25,741 page views (4.96 pages per visit)

Traffic sources have shifted slightly. The increase in direct traffic is from membership growth and usage.

67.8% are direct traffic
27.09% are from referring sites and
5.1% are from search engines.

Where will we be next year?

Who knows? The goal was to stay in touch. That seems to be working. In the meantime various members of the community and others are also working to build services with features more akin to the original Pownce. And while the economic climate is gloomy, new services continue to emerge. In another year we could be spending our lunch hours exploring some yet unknown site with yet another funny name.

But what this has shown me is that social media works. In the right situation it can be a very effective marketing tool. But it's the people and the connections between them, that make it so.

* For those 7 of you unfamiliar with the science fiction classic, Soylent Green, there is a classic line towards the end that states, "Soylent Green is people!" Alas, soylent green was also what people ate.

What is the secret of Soylent Green?

Tips for installing Google Analytics on Case and other Web servers.

Heidi Cool — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 06:02:18 +0000

Traffic sources: a wee fraction of the data available

There comes a time in every Web maintainer's life when the boss or client asks to see the Web stats for the past 6 months/year/5 years or what have you. Ideally you or your server administrator set this up long ago; you—being equally keen to understand the usage patterns of your site, and to use that knowledge to improve your content—check them on a regular basis, and can provide the information immediately.

Then again, if you've been busy building and updating sites, this may be one of those projects that has been patiently waiting on your to-do list. If your server doesn't have analytics software pre-installed, and you've not yet installed any yourself, now—before the boss asks—is the time to do so.

This is particularly important for users who host sites on the main Case server.

Since upgrading the Web server, we have switched from using Aurora Stats to using Google Analytics on our sites. Where in the past you would have run a monthly report using the A.P.A.S. utilities, now you just install your tracking code once—after which you can view your data at any time. (We are also exploring additional server-based analytics software that we may install in the future to augment what is available through Google.)

Getting Started

To begin the process go to http://www.google.com/analytics. If you have an existing Google account you can login here to set up your analytics account. If you don't already have a Google account you can sign up to create one.

Creating your site profile

Login to Google Analytics, then select "Analytics Settings"
Click on Add Web site Profile
Choose your profile type. If this is the first time you are setting up analytics, choose new domain. If you are adding another Web site within the same domain, choose existing domain. In this example we'll choose new.
Type or paste in the URL of your site's domain. Note: If your site, like many Case sites, does not reside on the root of the domain, do not include the full path to your site, only include the domain. A complete URL, such as www.case.edu/community, will give you an error message as pictured here. Instead just include www.case.edu or whatever domain you use. (You will modify this later in step 13.)
Select your location and time zone then click continue
On the Tracking Code page, you will see 2 options. Select New Tracking Code (ga.js). This will give you the tracking code for your site. The code will look something like this:
Add the code to your site
Instructions for those on the main Case server
1. Create a new blank file in Dreamweaver or any plain text editor and copy the tracking number into the file. In our example the number is UA-1279047-11 as shown in red.
2. Save this file as .googleanalytics. In Dreamweaver select "all files" in the "save as type" dropdown box to make sure no extension is added to the filename. If your program saves it as something like .googleanalytics.html or .googleanalytics.txt simply exit the file and rename it without the extension.
3. Upload this file to the root or main directory level of your site. The server will use this file to embed the code into your pages.
Instructions for those on other servers
1. Copy the full code provided by Google and paste it into the bottom of each of your Web pages immediately above . If you are using server side includes (ssi), templates or some other method for including standard content across your site, you can put this in which ever file controls the lowermost content on your pages. I generally put mine in the bottom of the .ssi file I use to include the footer on my pages.
2. Upload your edited pages to your site.
Click the Finish button. This will take you back to the Analytics Settings page. If you have a site at the top level of your domain and everything was installed correctly you should see "Tracking code installed Waiting for Data" under the status column to the right of your profile listing. Your installation is now complete and you can return in 24 hours to see your data.
If, like accounts on the main Case server, your site is hosted in a subdirectory within your domain, you will see "Tracking code not detected" under the status column. This is perfectly normal and will be remedied in the following steps.
Click Edit under the Settings column to the right of your profile listing. This will take you to the profile settings for your site.
Click Edit in the upper right corner of the Main Web site Profile Information box.
Change the name of your profile to one of your choosing.
Replace your domain URL with the complete URL for your site. In our example we're using http://www.case.edu/community/.
Type in the name of your default page. On the main Case servers we use index.html as the default pages within directories. Other servers may use default.html. If you're not sure, check with your server administrator or Web hosting provider.
Click Save Changes to return to the Profile Settings page. On this page you can click on "Check Status" to make sure everything is working. It may take a minute or two for Google to process everything after which it should say "Waiting for Data -
Analytics has been successfully installed and data is being gathered now." Your installation is now compete.

Additional reference materials and instructions have also been provided by ITS as part of the new Aurora Project Administration System (APAS) Toolkit (login required).

Tracking .pdf, .mp3 and other downloadable files

As one of our campus Web maintainers recently observed, Google Analytics doesn't track downloadable files such as .pdf's by default. Google offers a way to do this by adding a small bit of code to each download link, but this requires you to edit each applicable link and move your tracking code towards the top of the page.

If you would prefer to install this on a site wide basis I recommend using the javascript solution offered by Good Web Practices. With this method you simply download their Google Analytics link tracking JavaScript, save it to a scripts directory on your site, and add immediately before the Google tracking code you installed at the bottom of your pages. Those of you using the Case .googleanalytics file method should add this to the bottom of your pages just above —the same way maintainers not on the main server did to add the tracking code in step 7.