Right on the heels of my Quantcast posting; I’ve decided to give Quantcast some respect for helping me figure out which of the microblogging services are on the rise. My gut told me Twitter and it looks like my gut was correct.

Initially I thought this chart was showing me the rise in interest in Twitter and the adoption of it by so many new users. However, ff we make this chart relative it even suggests that Pownce and Jaiku are loosing steam / users.

Is there anything wrong with Pownce and Jaiku? Jaiku yes, Pownce not at all. Jaiku was solid before Google acquired them but it has taken forever for Google to re-open Jaiku for the general public. Pownce on the other hand is a solid service and sometimes seems easier to use and more reliable then Twitter. Kevin Rose and gang are no strangers to high-use sites and I believe Pownce will compete better with Twitter over time.

Based on the few examples I’ve looked at, not very!

Site A: Enterprise Class / Fortune 1000 Web Site
This comparison shows Quantcast ESTIMATES in green, versus the ACTUALS in WebTrends. Both measures track “VISITS”. This is important because the default for Quantcast is “PEOPLE”. I still haven’t figured out the difference between the two. The variation between the two sets of data is significant and the traffic pattern seems inverted.

Site B: Regional Business Information Site
This comparison is between Quantcast ACTUALS in green and Google Analytics ACTUALS in orange. Again, we are tracking Google Unique Visitors against Quantcast Visits. Another important note is that when actual data is pulled in Quantcast you’ll see separate tracking for US vs Global. Since Google doesn’t distinguish, we’ll focus on the global on both.


Site C: National Ecommerce Site
In this example Quantcast faired to be a bit more accurate. I compared Quantcast People (ESTIMATED) with Google Absolute Unique Visitors and the results were a bit more accurate.


Trend Overview
These graphs below were interesting to me because of the traffic discrepancy despite both sites utilizing tracking codes. Both of these graphs are pulled from Site B. Google’s Max is 206 VISITORS per day, whereas Quantcast is showing about 330 VISITORS.

Google Analytics

Quantcast Visits

Summary
I think Quantcast is an excellent tool; however you should proceed with caution when using the analytics obtained from both it’s estimates and actuals. It is important to note that both measures are benchmarking Quantcast against WebTrends and Google Analytics; however both of these tools have been used for many years and are fairly trusted. I’m not sure I’m ready to fully trust in Quantcast. But I’m very open to differing opinions on this.

With the DNC coming to town I thought it would be useful to dispel some of the impressions I’ve heard about Denver from clients, friends and family around the country. I only came up with 7… 10 would be a bit too forced.

1. Denver is in the Mountains

Thank you National Weather Service and local weathermen for this misconception. We are about 30 miles from the actual mountains where the weather / climate is totally different from the Front Range, in large part due to the huge elevation difference.
Source

2. It snows in Denver all the time

Wrong. I really believe Coors and Monday Night Football are to blame on this one. On average Denver gets about 60 inches of snow per year. For comparison, Cleveland, Ohio gets about 56 inches. However, because of our dry climate and high-elevation snow doesn’t stick around for more then a few days… tops. I’ve even shoveled snow in shorts because the sun is so intense.

Frequently the mountains are blasted with 2-3 feet of fresh powder and the weather service wrongly associates this snowfall to Denver; when in fact Denver has received an inch or two of snow.
Source

3. It’s cold in Denver

Nope. It’s usually about 7 degrees warmer in Denver then in New York, Boston, Chicago or St. Louis during the winter months. Also the low humidity makes the air temperature even more comfortable.
Source

4. Denver is a “cow-town”

OK, sure we have a few cowboys in the area and the annual Western Stock Show but that is about as far as it goes. The corridor which consists of Denver and Boulder is a fairly well established metro area which feels like any other metro region, minus the trees. It is stories like this one from NPR which make me crazy because this really isn’t the “real” Colorado.

5. The South has more sun.

Sorry, that is wrong also. Colorado gets about 300 days of sun per year, Denver specifically gets around 115 day of pure sun. While that is much better then a rainy day the biggest drawback is you’ll need sunglasses and sunscreen out here. Source

6. Denver lacks cultural attractions

Not so much. The DCPA is the second largest performing arts complex in the World next to New York City’s Lincoln Center and the Denver Art Museum is a work of architectural art in itself.
Source

7. The Highways are overcrowded

We aren’t even in the top 10 most congested cities. Having lived in Philly most of my life i can say I-95 and the PA Turnpike are far worse then I-25 into Denver. It just like any other metro area and we have decent public transportation now that the T-Rex project has been completed.
Source

I started noticing this right after I got my iPhone 3g about a month ago. Here’s the deal. Apple is downsampling images that are imported through iTunes onto your iPhone. I.E. they go from looking great on screen to looking grainy and slightly textured.

If you want to see for yourself save out a photo from your favorite photo manager and import it via iTunes onto the iPhone. It should now be located in your photos directory within the iPhone Photos App. Take a look at it closely in comparison with the original, you will see the result on the right (rollover for comparison shots).

Here’s my question, why is iTunes doing this to our photos? It seems like the iPhone has a good enough processor that it shouldn’t have trouble showing photo details. After all, this is the platform that plays video and 3d games. And even worse, it doesn’t seem to have this issue if you look at photos via Safari. In fact, I found that my image uploaded online and then saved via Safari to the camera roll looked a lot better than the imported version from iTunes!

What’s the deal Apple? I don’t want my photos and wallpapers to look like they came from 1996.

Yes, you can track file downloads with Google Analytics. Although it doesn’t automatically give you that capability by just dropping in the Google Analytics Code, here is a simple method to add that tracking ability. For each file that you want Google Analytics to track, you need to create a “virtual page” using the pageTracker function in each file HREF in your site.

Example:
If you site has a PDF called financial-report.pdf and the link is
<a href="/files/financial-report.pdf">Financial Report</a>
That code will need to be rewritten to read.
<a href="/files/financial-report.pdf" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/files/financial-report.pdf');">Financial Report</a>


This works great for a limited number of files, but for sites which have multiple file downloads. You may want to try Brian Clifton’s JS Script.