Capulet Communications

Seth Godin has done some thinking about Google AdSense, and why it may be valuable to have ads for competitive products on your site:

Google AdSense ads across the top increase confidence. They’re recognizable and safe for the surfer. They make it clear that there are alternatives. They demonstrate confidence on the part of the site builder. Analogy: All car dealers do better when they’re on the same street.

Now, of course, we don't recommend that you put Google ads on your corporate site. On the other hand, if you're a software reseller, they may be appropriate and may--as Seth's experiment indicates--bolster sales. 

Back in January, I left a comment on Forrester analyst Charlene Li's blog. She was doing some research about corporate blogging platforms. I mention this because Forrester kindly sent me a copy of the resulting Forrester Wave report on corporate blogging platforms: 

Forrester conducted in-depth evaluations of nine blogging platforms: Drupal, iUpload's Customer Conversation System, Roller, Six Apart's Movable Type and TypePad, Telligent Systems' Community Server, Traction Software's TeamPage, UserLand Software's Manila, and WordPress.

The results (which, sadly, will cost you a couple of grand) are illuminating. 

Over at ZDNet, David Berlind has some interesting thoughts on Web 2.0's impact on collaboration behind the firewall:

So, after reading LaMonica's story and reading about how Microsoft is adding wiki functionality to Sharepoint and how an IBM executive — the top guy at the company's collaborative software division — is saying that the existing way of doing things is "fundamentally flawed," I see companies that understand the extent to which RSS, wikis, and blogs can be extremely disruptive to the status quo.  A status quo that's largely been upheld by them.  I see the new intranet, the new protocol of which is RSS.

This make tons of sense. What are intranets generally for? Collecting and redistributing knowledge.

Enterprise applications are increasingly becoming RSS enabled, so they can spit out useful feeds from the back end. On the other end, of course, the Web's information sources  increasingly push out RSS.

Plus, it's a great way to introduce RSS to skeptical or technophobic staff within your organization. If you make it part of their job to work with RSS, they'll learn to love it. 

Around Capulet, we're staunch believers in web stats. In an imperfect world, web stats (also known as web analytics) offer precise and exacting information about your website's performance.

I spend a lot explaining what all the terms (clickthroughs, visitors, referrerals and so forth) in the average stats package mean, and what's important. Now, I may just point them to James's thorough explanation of what web analytics is all about:

Just as with a car, some of the measures in your webstats are useful for managing and enhancing your website. Some of the measures are just added on information to sell the car, because they make sense to the folks who built the webstats packages or because they could be added.

Two improvements that I'd suggest:

• A comparison of server-side and 'web bug' (such as Google Analytics or Webside Story) packages. I've found the latter to be much more accurate, and would discourage clients from using the likes of Webalizer or AW Stats.
• A discussion of the site overlay feature that many stats packages offer, and how it's instructive.

Urban Fare is a chi-chi grocery store in my neighbourhood. You can spot all manner of locals--sharply-dressed metrosexuals, Lululemon-clad mothers and twenty-something sylphs cuddling chihuahuas (Colene recently came to terms with shopping there).

They're currently giving away reusable, black canvas bags. They've got the store's logo on one side, and this on the other:

It indicates that Western Wind Energy is offering a free 'Vancouver jazz podcast' on their website. This makes sense as a promotion because: