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.
Alexander Roy: The Driver
Those of you who know me even just a little bit will know that I’m something of a petrolhead. And that’s why when I stumbled across this Wired article by Charles Graeber, I was enthralled. I had to find out more.
Luckily for me, every man and his dog are talking about it. And so I found Alex Roy’s site, Team Polizei, learned some more, and then bought the book; The Driver: My Dangerous Pursuit of Speed and Truth in the Outlaw Racing World.
This is an incredible account of Alex’s road rally career, blasting though several Gumball 3000 events, the Bullrun, and ultimately, Alex’s attempts at a record transcontinental drive across the US.
This is totally gripping stuff. This is not just about having fun in cars; Alex’s determination to win is matched only by his dedication to his friends; forfeiting stages to help those who have broken down, etc.
Now, you’re probably asking yourselves why I’m writing about this on a geek blog. But I can assure you that Alex Roy is a certifiable geek of the highest order (right down to the ‘GE3K’ badge on his Polizei144 jackets). The sheer quantity of gadgetry packed into his blue BMW M5 is mightily impressive; 4 Garmin GPS units, 2 police scanners, radar/laser detectors and jammers, thermal imaging camera, to name just a few bits. All this gear enables Alex and crew to drive as fast as possible, as safely as possible. Alex takes considerable care to drive courteously and safely, often at the expensive of a position lost to a reckless competitor (and often regained again further down the track).
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