November 17, 2005

Official Google Blog: The circle of analytics:

We’ve integrated it with AdWords, it’s easier to use – and it’s free. We hope that Google Analytics will help improve the overall web – one site at a time.

I hope a future release includes tools to integrate Google Analytics with Google AdSense. It should be possible to associate actual and possible AdSense channel revenues with Google Analytics directory and page tracking.

Given the present feature/function in Google Analytics, one could do this in a crude way by assigning a fractional $ value based on historical eCPMs to each page. For example, my index page on this blog gets some hefty % of the traffic to the blog and pulls about a $2.30 CPM last I checked. I could give each hit on the index page a valule of $0.023 so a thousand clicks would be “worth” about $2.30.

Stats whizzes: Make sense? Am I missing anything?

Official Google Blog: Judging Book Search by its cover:

What’s in a name? Quite a bit, actually; what you call yourself says a lot about what you think you are. And we’ve been thinking lately that Google Print should really be called Google Book Search.

Why the change? Well, one factor was all the comments we got about how excited people were that Google Print would help them print out their documents, or web pages they visit — which of course it won’t.

More important, the change reflects our product’s evolution. When we launched Google Print, our goal was to make it easier for users to discover books. Now that we’re starting to achieve that, we think a more descriptive name will help clarify what our users can do with it: namely, search the full text of books to find ones that interest them and learn where to buy or borrow them.

No, we don’t think that this new name will change what some folks think about this program. But we do believe it will help a lot of people understand better what we’re doing. We want to make all the world’s books discoverable and searchable online, and we hope this new name will help keep everyone focused on that important goal.

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I would be far happier about this sensible decision if the friendly folks at Google Book Search would finally digitize my four titles that have been in the import queue for almost a year. They seem as nimble as the La Brea Tar Pits. I am getting tired of the chirpy notes when they can’t do something basic like upload the completely digitized files that have been in their possession for months.

They report in an e-mail to publishers that Google Book Search will be promoted on the Google Home Page for “the next few days.” Great! That will make me money as I have observed that my Google Book Search ad revenues are directly proportional to total traffic.

Seems to me that Google needs to add more of the specialized searches like Blogs and Book Search to the basic home page. Why not a DHTML type gizmo that puts the most used search types at the front (far left) and rotates the unused ones to the “other” tab?

Apparently, TICKLE THE DUCK is everything that PAT THE BUNNY is not. Sort of the ANTI-PAT.

Publishers Weekly reports:

Tickle the Duck! is a novelty book that has taken its publisher, Little, Brown, by surprise. Starring a testy duck who warns readers not to tickle him, the touch-and-feel title was originally scheduled to be published next February, to coincide with spring and Easter. But once the sales reps and then book buyers saw it and began expressing their enthusiasm, February seemed too far away.

According to Celeste Risko, Little, Brown’s national accounts manager, as soon as she presented the book to Borders, Sarah Jagenow, one of the chain’s children’s buyers, told her, “Oh no, you have to move this up.” Jagenow predicted to Risko that Tickle the Duck! could be a big holiday gift title at its stores. “Everyone at BGI has fallen in love with the duck,” says Risko. “The book appeals to both kids and adults. It’s got that subversive humor to it. It’s not your ordinary Pat the Bunny book.”

The strong interest from Borders, along with the book’s status as an in-house favorite, helped spur the publisher’s decision to release the book this September, and they have gone back to press for an additional 50,000 copies, for a total of 75,000 copies in print. Little, Brown has also signed the author/illustrator for a second book, due in spring 2007, called Stop Kissing Me.

Now TICKLE THE DUCK has its own Technorati tag.

All Sorts of Weird Stuff: News - A Feast For Crows #1:

A Feast For Crows #1

A report from GRRM’s signing in Petaluma indicates that he has just gotten word that … will enter the November 27th New York Times’ Bestseller list at #1. Congratulations, George!

Well deserved.

La Biblioth�que de Ran Borune :: Voir le sujet - Unauthorized a Feast for Crows Analysis:

la couverture est trippante quand m�me. tr�s collante au titre.

French readers seem to like the cover … it is “trippante”, “collante”, and “sympa”.

Other comments are fairlly typical. Fans worry about the books when they see them in Amazon, but generally enjoy them when they buy them.

Dan Brown Boxed Set :: Author surnames A-E :: Fiction choice :: All Top Books:

Dan Brown Boxed Set #995

Found this in Google Base. Not a bad buy at pounds 16.99.

I just added my first item to Google Base: an ad for this website.

It will be interesting to see how much traffic it drives … once Google Analytics starts working properly!

More about Google Base.

Stoo-pid.

Guardian Unlimited Books | News | If you don’t want to know how Bleak House ends, look away now:

Some of the most complicated and wordy works of English literature are being compressed into the jerky speedwriting of text messages, to help students choose classics and master their revision…

Classics compressed (and what they actually mean)

Romeo and Juliet

FeudTween2hses–Montague& Capulet. RomeoM falls_<3w/_ JulietC@mary Secretly Bt R kils J's Coz&isbanishd. J fakes Death. As Part of Plan2b-w/R Bt_leter Bt It Nvr Reachs Him. Evry1confuzd--- bothLuvrs kil Emselves.

Translation A feud between two houses - Montague and Capulet. Romeo Montague falls in love with Juliet Capulet and they marry secretly, but Romeo kills Juliet’s cousin and is banished. Juliet fakes her own death. As part of the plan to be with Romeo she writes him a letter but it never reaches him. Everyone is confused and both lovers kills themselves.

Pride and Prejudice

5SistrsWntngHsbnds.NwMenIn Twn-Bingly&Darcy Fit&Loadd. BigSisJaneFals4B,2ndSisLizH8s DCozHesProud.SlimySoljrWikam SysDHsShadyPast.TrnsOutHes ActulyARlyNysGuy&RlyFancysLiz.SheDecydsSheLyksHim.Evry1GtsMaryd.

Five sisters wanting husbands. There are two new men in town - Bingley and Darcy. They are handsome and wealthy. Big sister Jane falls for Bingley, but second sister Elizabeth hates Darcy because he is proud. Slimy soldier Wickham says Darcy has a shady past. It turns out that he’s actually a really nice guy and really fancies Elizabeth. She decides that she likes him. Everyone gets married.

Bleak House

EstherBecumsWardOfJarndyce WhosInCortCase.OvaWardsRich&Ada (L8aACuple).Tulkinghorn-nosyLawyer-WorksOutLadyDedlock= E’sMum.CaseEnds w/ no1 gtn money. E marrysSexyDoc-Liv 2geva InBleakHse.Rich&L.DedlockDie.

Esther becomes the ward of Jarndyce, who is involved in a court case about Richard and Ada (who are later a couple). Tulkinghorn - a nosy lawyer - works out that Lady Dedlock is Esther’s mother. The case is concluded with no one receiving any money. Esther marries the sexy doctor and they live together in Bleak House. Richard and Lady Dedlock die

Chris Pratley’s OneNote Blog : OneNote 12 Beta 1 released!:

OneNote 12 Beta 1 released!

Beta 1 of “OneNote 12″ (and “Office12″) is now available for download for those people who are signed up (you know who you are). This is not a public beta so if you’re not already on the beta you are not going to be able to see it. Sorry. If you want to play with pre-release OneNote you’ll have another chance in the Spring when we release Beta 2, also called the “preview” release. That release will be much more suitable for people who are not inclined to risk data, crashes, etc. You can register to get the preview here (click “Register Now”). There’s more general Office 12 info at that site too, including an RSS feed.

Now, to people who have Beta 1, hold on to your hats.

As has been mentioned in various blog posts, check out a bunch of new capabilities:

1. Multiple notebooks

2. Shared notebooks (multi-user, online/offline no holds barred rich “wiki-like” experience)

3. Sync notebooks between your multiple machines (same as #2 but with yourself only)

4. Hyperlinks between and into/out of notes

5. Instant search

6. Tables

7. Embedded documents

8. Drag and drop of sections, pages, folders, notebooks

9. All images made searchable and indexed using OCR (if they have text in them)

10. Print documents to OneNote from any application - and these are indexed and searchable too.

11. New ink model (oops - forgot to blog about this one!). Lasso tool, drawing tools, etc.

12. Save as PDF (and “XPS”)

13. Live sync of task status with Outlook12 (forgot this one too!)

14. Extensibility (more to come on this)

There are other capabilities in the beta as well - Owen or myself will write about them later.