Google has partnered with hundreds of the museums all over the world to create the Google Cultural Center. Visitors can scroll through the site, view different exhibitions and learn about the individual pieces.
Blog
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The Promise of Universal Analytics: Custom Dimensions Can Show Who Is Visiting and What They Are Doing
Much has been written about about Google Analytics (GA), which is now Universal Analytics. When you upgrade your account to Universal Analytics, a whole new world of reporting becomes available, including enhanced e-commerce reports, a more flexible tracking code that lets you track visitors across their devices (e.g., when people visit your website on a laptop, tablet and phone, as long as they are logged in, you can see session info), and a greater ability to filter and exclude criteria.But what I’m most excited about are Custom Dimensions. Custom Dimensions let you send custom data to GA. For example, some of my association clients are now sending the following to Google Analytics: member type, member status, special access levels, size of company, and special interests. Why is this valuable?
Previously, GA was great mainly for analyzing WHAT people were doing on your website. We created endless reports about what search terms are referring traffic, the flows through the site, top pages being visited, top downloads, top abandons, etc. But with Custom Dimensions, you can now see, for example, what percentage of overall traffic is coming from members, traffic to meetings pages by meeting type, downloads by member type, whether or not Board and committee members are visiting your website, etc. While Google’s custom variables feature allowed similar functionality, Universal Analytics will allow businesses to leverage this data across devices, making it more meaningful and accurate.
With Custom Dimensions, we now have more insight into WHO is visiting a website. Before you get too excited, remember that Google’s terms of service specifically disallows tracking that is personally identifiable. Which means an organization *could* set a tracking ID that is user-specific but that would violate Google’s terms of service. Instead, Google is giving us better tools to see which categories of people are visiting which pages and completing transactions.
If you have some type of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system or Association Managment System (AMS), you’d probably benefit from sending custom dimensions to Google. You’ll need help from your web developer since this data is in your membership database and must be sent to Google via a custom cookie. One last tip: this coding must be very precise and very clean. Extra spaces will cause the reporting to fail. Once in place, however, this code works flawlessly.
Good luck finding new insights from your Google Analytics data!
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Sky Walk App
Identify the stars, planets, galaxies, constellations and even satellites above simply by holing your iPhone or iPad up to the sky.
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Anthropologie’s Blog
Looking for some inspirational ideas for your wardrobe and home? Check out the Anthropologie blog. I love the Pinterest-inspired design.
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VSCO Cam
Take your iPhone photography to the next level. VSCO Cam offers cool effects for both shooting and editing photos. I love the intuitive UI!
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Google Now
Google Now is the latest product from the world’s largest search engine. The website uses CSS to create the animations.
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I Did It! I Cancelled My Cable Subscription!
I did it! A couple of weeks ago, I cancelled my subscription to cable TV through Comcast. Why? Gosh, so many reasons but primarily because it was costing me $120 per month and my family just doesn’t watch that much TV. Don’t get me wrong. We watch a lot of shows, just not cable TV. So far, here’s how we’re surviving and thriving without cable:- HD Antenna. We had an HD antenna that lets us watch network television in HD. Finally putting it to use. Works pretty well. $50.
- Netflix. My 3-year old is fond of saying, “I love Netflix.” We watch all kinds of shows and movies on Netflix. Like the rest of DC, I’m hooked on House of Cards. $8.99 per month.
- Amazon Instant Video. Since I’m an Amazon Prime member, I get access to tons of free shows and movies, many of them not available on Netflix, like The Wire, my new favorite and Stargate SG-1, my old favorite. Free, if you don’t count my Prime membership.
- Hulu. I just signed up for this. I love that I have access to most of the latest TV shows, including the late night talk shows. My husband loves watching movie trailers. $7.99 per month
- Network television apps. I’m pretty impressed with the ABC, CBS and NBC apps. I get access to all of the shows, although I’m not nuts about the ads and the fact that shows expire too soon for me, since I don’t watch regularly. The Taste disappeared on me last year when the season ended; why not keep up old episodes for a few months? Free. On the CBS app, I’m now locked out of some content because I can’t log in to my Comcast account. Bah.
- Specialty channel apps. I’m in love with the PBS app. I binge watched A Chef’s Life earlier this year.
- Chromecast. This $35 device from Google lets us stream shows from a table or phone to the big TV in our living room. It’s also handy when we’re traveling and want to watch a movie with the kids.
- iTunes, Sony and Amazon stores. Maki, my husband, has banned me from buying movies on physical media. So no more buying DVDs. Instead, we rent movies through one of the online stores. If it’s a movie I know we’ll watch multiple times, like The Lego Movie, I’ll buy it through iTunes and download it to whichever iOS device my child happens to be on at the time.
What gets tricky is figuring out where and how to watch a specific show. For example, my 3-year old wanted to watch Blue’s Clues. This show used to be on Netflix but one day, it was gone. I googled “Blue’s Clue on Netflix” and found lots of threads about Netflix no longer having the show. So I started checking different apps but what a pain! I found that TV.com has a nifty database of shows and where they’re available. Search for the show you want, then click Watch Online. Hover over an episode and TV.com will let you which platform has it, e.g., Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, Hulu, etc. Love this.
What I don’t have is a way to watch CNN and live sports that aren’t on network television. So I settle for the CNN app, which doesn’t have live streaming unless you’re a cable subscriber. Bah. So I turn to the NPR app, which has text and audio. And I now listen to the Radio Washington app, which lets me listen to WAMU (the local NPR station) live. Thankfully, my family’s isn’t big on watching live sports. We’ll just have to keep our friends who have cable TV and giant TVs. 🙂
It’s been a couple of weeks and I haven’t missed cable. This might change and I can always re-subscribe. In the meantime, I’ll enjoy my apps.
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Allrecipes Dinner Spinner
Need some dinner inspiration? I love trolling through the recipes on this app to find something new and yummy for the fam!
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Coin
Coin allows you to combine all of your credit/debit/gift cards into one card. Love this concept and the visual storytelling they use to sell the product on their website.
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Amazon Price Check App
Scan the barcode of any item with this app, and compare the item’s price to Amazon’s instantly. A dream come true for bargain hunters and Amazon lovers!