two seven

At work, we’re trying to get the most value from our site’s visitor statistics. We’ve been using both Nielsen//NetRatings and Google Analytics for a while now and these tools are great. Just a month or so ago, we added Crazy Egg to our toolbox.

What makes Crazy Egg stand out from our other tools is not that it collects data that the other tools don’t, but rather how the collected data is presented and visualised.

With the volume of traffic we get to our site, we just run Crazy Egg for a couple of hours on a particular page, and can immediately see areas of the page that can be improved; e.g. we can see that many users are clicking a particular image that has no link. So we put an appropriate link on that image, and save our visitors some frustration/confusion and we save them a click.

It’s also quite interesting to note that across the board, people don’t mind scrolling. You can see where people of particular window-sizes clicked. Plenty of small-window users were using the links in our footer; they had to scroll down to see it.

Crazy Egg is free to use on up to 4 pages and for 5000 visits per month. We used the free plan while we trialed it, but have been convinced of its value, and so have since upgraded.

So I thought I’d figure out how many social networking applications I had accounts with. I was surprised when I saw just how many I was signed up to.

Virb°

The best layout/presentation/customisation by far. Profile customisation is amazing &emdash; you’ve seen my profile; it’s pretty much the default layout with a few different colours. Now check out local Auckland band SansArcade’s Virb.com profile. It’s the goodness.

Facebook

Compared to Virb°, Facebook is more about networking and less about profile customisation, i.e. while you can drag and drop your profile modules to change the layout, you can’t change colours/fonts/CSS. Profiles are not public – you’ll need a Facebook account to see them. The user interface is usable, and as with Virb°, very tidy.

Bebo

Bebo is much more casual than the previous two. Customisation is limited to colours and module background images – you can make your own if you want. Targeted at a younger market, Bebo is “the largest social networking site in the UK, Ireland, and New Zealand, and the third largest behind MySpace and Facebook in the United States” (from their ‘About’ page.)

MySpace

MySpace is one of the bigger social networks. It’s also one of the uglier ones.

MSN Spaces

Microsoft’s offering. MSN Spaces ties in with your Windows Live/Hotmail account.

LinkedIn

A business networking application. Focus on skills and work experience.

Xing

Also a business networking application. Focus on contact generation and management.

Meetup

An online network to facilitate offline networking. Used for arranging meatspace meetings of people and groups with specific interests.

So those are the networks I have accounts with. I really only use a couple of them; the others I’ve just signed up to for a look-see.

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