"So i'm getting Scroogled?!" Er, probably not...

I think it's fair to say that i'm very happy using my Google products (Mail, Calendar, Docs, Blogger, etc) and they all work rather well. But, I also realise that Google specialise in paid for advertising and that the compromise for having free tools to use is that some may carry some ads, which are usually discrete and I always ignore. So, it was quite amusing to see that Microsoft has started a fairly low level smear campaign to bolster the take up of outlook.com... 

Only problem is, the below video really just looks like something a bored student has put together, or is that the point?

Negative marketing may be the new approach for Microsoft, but as Marketing Land point out this may not be having the effect they were hoping for:

"To date, the Microsoft-backed petition against Gmail’s practices has gained about over 6,000 signatures — equal to about 0.002% of Gmail’s user base."

 Could this be a case of Microsoft telling us what we already know? "Hey, Google does advertising..."

I'm famous! Well, sort of...

Eight months after the Google Street View trike visited my old work the images are up and running on Google Maps.

What I hadn't realised was that I would have a starring role at all three locations... Here I am loitering at the Luton campus:


View Larger Map

But, can you complete the game of "Where's Kris" and find me at the Putteridge Bury and Bedford campuses!

Content refresh is about to start

Last year, when I was in my previous post, I decided to blog on the progress of the Content Management System project. It was a great way of sharing progress, ideas and issues with the wider community and received some great feedback.

Now that I have a new role and a new project I think it's time to do the same thing!

So, starting today the new CMS project is kicking off at the University of Hertfordshire and we're tackling content first... always a tricky subject! There is a planned 9 month content refresh schedule in place where we will be looking to correct all broken links, spelling mistakes and dodgy content. The main aim being that we will deliver a faster, leaner site which is easier to navigate and maintain. Not hoping for too much really!

In the mix will be a number of useful resources including Siteimprove and Google Analytics. We'll also be unveiling our new Content Management System and Enterprise Search provider shortly.

First areas to get our attention will be the School of Law and the School of Humanities with the School of Education following on shortly. Interesting and busy times ahead!

Instagram + Facebook = Facegram?

So Facebook has just picked up Instagram for $1billion... pretty high pricing for a product that doesn't appear to have any real revenue stream at the moment and was initially only valued at $500m.

So the question is, why have they done it and why did they pay so much?

Well, Facebook are looking to secure their position as the place to go for photo sharing. Although it may not be initially obvious Facebook contains a huge archive of peoples images, a big driver in staying engaged with the social network. If Facebook hadn't purchased Instagram it would be highly likely that Google (Picasa, Panoramio, Google+) or Yahoo! (Flickr) would have picked it up, putting them in a much stronger position to move forward. As Facebook continues to face competition from other social networking sites it will be keen to ensure that the competition can't simply purchase a superior product with a wide user base. The premium price paid by Facebook would have been to ensure that the deal was locked down early on.

A lot of people have expressed concern about the acquisition by Facebook and what the future plans of the app will now entail. Facebook has a reputation for swallowing start-ups whole and not necessarily keeping the functionality running. To try and help calm the storm Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom was keen to point out on the Instragram blog:

"It’s important to be clear that Instagram is not going away. We’ll be working with Facebook to evolve Instagram and build the network. We’ll continue to add new features to the product and find new ways to create a better mobile photos experience."

Moving forward though, will it prove to be money well spent by Facebook and will Instgram really survive intact!

Targeting trial complete!

Three weeks ago I started a trial using the Google DFP system for targeting the banners on our homepage for our internal audience, something of a try it an dsee approach.

Well, the good news is that it has worked rather well! Using the IP check with DFP we targeted anyone within the beds.ac.uk domain. This has reaped some interesting results:

 

Up to a 1.1% CTR on internal banners which has been great for promotion of our internal services!

Below is a screenshot of the external site as seen by an internal viewer:

 

If you compare this to the live external site (beds.ac.uk) then you can see that the messaging is very different!

The only outstanding question now is how much more can we do with the system, text snippets that are changed on IP or country details would work or maybe looking at the idea of selling some spare impressions off...?

It's time to target our content!

With the launch of the new homepage design on beds.ac.uk we also rolled in a new banner management system (Google AdManager) at the same time. This runs the four banner buttons underneath the Course Finder search. The idea initially was to look at running UK & International variants of banner content using the geographic filtering options available within the system. For example, if you are coming in from China you would see a different banner to someone visiting from London. Clever stuff, especially as the creatives can be totally different and draw on local preferences on colour, tone of voice, etc.

But, the option we didn't initially think about was far closer to home! We know from our analytics that the externally facing website receives traffic from our internal audience, current students, staff, etc. So why not target banners for them! AdManager allows us to target on IP address or domain name, so our first trial is to put up a banner, targeted at our internal domain, that points students to their Gmail account.

It's simple to put in place and will allow us to highlight events, services and information to our current students without it interfering with our marketing message to prospective students. A win win situation for all and incredibly easy to implement!

We're on Google+

I've finally created a profile for the University on Google+ anyone know what to use it for yet...

Google have been rather busy...

By now i'm sure most people have at least heard of the +1 button from Google, we're currently working out where to put it on our websites for a trial run.

But, alongside the announcement of +1 comes two more interesting and rather low key releases. The first being Google+ and the second being Google's addition of social media tracking within Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools.

Google+ appears to be the latest social networking attempt from Google and will hopefully take into account the lessons learnt from Buzz & Wave! The idea involves a number of strands, listed below and will be available on your mobile (Android, Apple, Blackberry, Nokia/Symbian, Windows Mobile) through a mixture of native apps and web apps.

Circles - An interesting way of sorting your contact into more manageable groups, family in one circle, friends in another.

Instant Upload - I love this idea, I already have an expanded Picasa account and it's pretty obvious that this will have some tie-in further down the line. The idea being that all those photos and videos you have on your mobile can be stored on Google+ in a private album. The best part is that the upload happens automatically, no need to remember to upload manually!

Sparks - Hmmmm, search & RSS combined maybe?

Huddle - A group texting facility sounds interesting, i'm assuming there will be a heavy tie in with Google Voice at some point.

Hangouts - Rolled into the whole package is also Video chat (a swipe at Skype/Facebook?) that you can use between selected friends or whole groups of people.

At the moment it's in limited release but you can register your interest here:

• Google+ interest page

The second roll out is additional code for Google Analytics, not as visually exciting as Google+ but looks great for anyone interested in +1, Like and Tweet action!

Tracking is listed under a new 'Social' navigation option and appears to only be available via the new version of Analytics. If you fancy having a go then you can find further details below: 

• Google Analytics & Webmaster Tools overview via Mashable
• Social Interaction Tracking Code via Google

 

Google Talk on Android...

Google has just announced that support for video chat and voice chat using Google Talk is coming to Android handsets!

As an owner of an Android handset (Desire HD) this sounds like the first steps to the hallowed release of Google Voice in the UK... maybe. The issue with this exciting news is that it's only going to be rolled out in the 2.3.4 update for the Nexus S in the next few weeks, then for other 2.3 Android devices in the near future. No mention of Android 2.2 users... which includes me and around 75% of other users!

At the moment i'm still waiting for the 2.3 upgrade to be run through HTC for them to add in their own tweaks before they release the upgrade to the world. This has no timeframe on it and with the speed of releases from Google it could be that 2.4 or 2.5 will be ot before we have the chance to upgrade to 2.3!

I love the idea of open source and Android is a great mobile operating system but having it run through a third party leads to delays in roll out, bloated applications and potential conflicts of interest.

The big question mark at the moment is if open source solutions survive the transition to paid for & support devices?

To root or not to root, that is the question!

You can read more about the developments on the Google Blog.

Bring on the trike!

We had a special visitor on the campus today, a very friendly Google trike was here to start street mapping our campus locations. It turned up in a classic white van and when it was rolled out into the car park it really turned some heads!

So, what did we have done? Well, Luton campus was covered across the front of the new campus centre and all three access routes. We then packed up and moved on to Putteridge Bury canpus where the extensive driveway was shot, a full circle of the building itself and also the landscaped grounds which was a bonus. Lucky the trike could go off road! Finally we headed over Bedford campus and did a full run through of the whole campus layout from the Library round to the accommodation block.

It will take a little while for the images to appear on Google but once in place it does mean that we can embed the street view images into our website, a brilliant addition to our marketing materials!

Many thanks Google!

Android lands at the University of Bedfordshire...

So, whilst we've been working on an iPhone app for the University it turns out that we have also had an internally facing Android application built... in just one week using the new Google App Inventor. It's in beta at the moment and is invitation only but a colleague in the LRC, Paul Fryer, has managed to get his name on the list and built his first application!

The app is free to download and covers a host of useful areas with contact details for library staff, GPS 'Find a campus' options and searches of the library catalogue. It's compatible with all Android phones running version 1.6 and above.

This has really shown us that the tools out there to develop for the Android platform have matured and can now assist all novice programmers with producing an engaging application. With the Android marketplace still running behind on the number of applications available when compared with Apple's App Store this could be just the boost it needs.

It's now been released into the wild and is available for download from the LRWeb site. It's aimed primarily at our current students but if you fancy a look then why not download a copy?

Visit LRWeb for the Android application

Google Blue Box Vs Funnel Back search

Search... it's a big subject when it comes to internal discussions on how visitors navigate our website. At the moment we have a Google Blue Box which provides us with a competent search and results display but does come with a two year lifetime at which point it gives out a little fizz and we need to purchase new hardware. It does seem strange that they only have a two year lifecycle!

So, as our box is due to self destruct within a year we started to look at alternative options and had a rather impressive demo from Funnel Back, part of Squiz. With only two hours of back end set-up and no tagging of our content the results displayed were impressive enough to stop us all talking!

Google has a real competitor for the small appliance search engine market and at present Google doesn't even compare (and i'm Google friendly!). The Funnel Back search results picked out course descriptions, suggested search terms and grouping with virtually no manual input. If we took the time to tweak it & tagged our content in a logial way (!) then we could see some outstanding results all of which would feed into a very nice course finder for our homepage.

I've posted a screen shot of both search results using the search term 'media' to show the difference.

Funnel Back search results for 'Media'

Google Blue Box search results for 'Media'

Anyone surprised that IE is on the decline?

So, IE now has less than 50% of the worldwide browser market share... anyone that surprised?

With Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera as the main opposition players on the market it was only a matter of time until IE fell to less than half the market usage. The big surprise of the report from StatCounter is that it's Chrome that's eating into their share and not Firefox! With Google as a serious player in pretty much everything now (watch out for Google TV!) it really shouldn't be a massive surprise that they are keen to take the majority share of the browser usage. After all, it is pretty quick!

The drop in usage has been partly attributed to the European Commissions ruling on Microsoft offering an easy way to select your preferred browser. But, can IE9 save the day or could this really be the beginning of the end for IE dominance?

Having looked at the Browser usage stats for beds.ac.uk we have seen a decrease in IE usage of 13.5% in the last 12 months with a 10% increase in the usage of Chrome and a 3% increase in the usage of Safari! So we're reflecting the stats within our own sites as well.

I've pulled off some stats from StatCounter showing the browser usage for Worldwide, Europe and the UK separately:

Worldwide IE usage

European IE usage

UK IE usage

UCAS Clearing 2010

Clearing 2010 is well underway at the University and we're seeing some great figures so far. I have put in place more tracking than ever before and the biggest issue we will have once Clearing shuts is how best to present it all! We have Clearing campaign tracking on all our online ads that filter into Google Analytics, including our trial run with Spotify advertising, telephone tracking, site tracking, unique phone numbers on print adverts and short URL tracking for radio. All in all it's going to be far easier for us to work out which mediums offer us the best ROI!

Hopefully everyone else is having as successful a time as we are and once Clearing has closed i'll look at publishing some of the reports on the blog, could make interesting reading!

Google Wave has hit the rocks...

So, Google Wave is being withdrawn... not a huge surprise to people who have used it!

Announced in May 2009 Google Wave was expected to revolutionise the way we communication online, allowing for sharing of content and collaboration on projects it was described as  "how e-mail would look if it were invented today" the closure has been blamed on poor take up.

I had an early invitation to Google Wave and quickly worked out that the new tool was not for me and apparently others have felt the same way... one to mark down for experience at Google!

AlertRank is no more...

The rather nice bolt-on for Google Alerts is sadly no more, I had a short email message in my inbox this morning stating:

"Our investors have decided that Alertrank has not generated enough of a following to justify maintaining it as a free site. As a result, we will be terminating the site on July 15th."

We've been using the service as an addition to the paid for monitoring that we use on a daily basis as it can sometimes pick things that get overlooked.

http://www.alertrank.com

It'll be a sadly missed service...

Google Analytics Intelligence

If, like me, you've been struggling to understand how best to utilise the new Intelligence reports within Google Analytics then you might find the following article useful. Written by Dave Chaffey on the Smart Insights website it gives a rough overview of what is/isn't useful and then a step by step guide to creating a custom alert.

Having read through the article it's inspired me to set up a few to trial run this under-used feature!

Smart Insights

Alert Rank... Harness the power of Google Alerts!

We currently use Google Alerts to highlight any news stories that reference the University and as a way to tackle any negative news or postings in a timely manner. This service is not only brilliant but also free and works as a nice addition to our paid for services. The only slight issue is the fact that it's a bit of a blunt tool and you receive a long list of mentions without any real ranking on how important they are.

So, to cut down on the manual processing is a new tool we've found called AlertRank. It gives you a good idea of how important the alerts are with an easy ranking tool and best of all... it's also free! We've been trialling it for a couple of days and so far the service is working rather well and there are publication tools which look as though they might be useful. Might be worth a look!

A sample snippet of the email you receive is listed below and shows the ranking in green on how important the article is deemed to be:

Alert Rank

Asynchronous Tracking with Google Analytics

So, I was creating a new blog today for our Equality & Diversity team and was adding in the tracking code for them from Google Analytics when I spotted this in the settings - 'New! Try the asynchronous tracking code'. Obviously I clicked on the link and experienced a mixture of excitement and disappointment!

With a description such as asynchronous tracking code I was expecting something pretty exciting but the link simply led to a help page within Google. However, after popping on my technical hat and doing some reading this actually sounds like a small improvement. Nothing amazing but enough to possibly help improve the load time of our sites which is always a bonus.

The way Google Analytics runs at the moment is that it's almost the last thing to load on the page. However, with the new version of the code you move it up the page to just after the tag so it loads earlier and you have more chance of it loading before a visitor leaves your page. Certainly something to bear in mind if you've started to notice that the analytics code is taking it's time to load, which on occasions we have!

To quote from Google:

The new tracking snippet offers the following benefits:

• Faster tracking code load times for your web pages due to improved browser execution
• Enhanced data collection and accuracy
• Elimination of tracking errors from dependencies when the JavaScript hasn't fully loaded

As we run our analytics code in a global footer the update only has to happen in one place to run site wide and we should see improvements almost straight away. This should mean more accurate stats but might mean your bounce rate goes up!

If you wanted to read the article with directions on how to implement on your own site then head over to the Google Help pages.

Can Google Docs be a serious contender?

I'm a huge fan of Google Docs, it keeps all my files in one place, I can work on a document from anywhere in the world without the need for a USB stick or issues of version control and it has brilliant sharing abilities! But i'm a simple user, I don't look to do complex formulas with spreadsheets or presentations with a lot of moving elements. So, how realistic is it that Google Docs could become a serious contender to take over as an office package and would we want it to?

We have recently rolled out Google Mail accounts to all of our 18,000 students and as part of the package they also have access to Google Docs. What will be interesting for us to see is what the take up is like and if students would rather use Google Docs than Microsoft Office? Also, if they do, how do we start to support them! At the moment Google Docs is an add-on rather than a piece of core University software and as such the only support is online or at the discresion of staff. Would we want to actively promote Google Docs to students? It certainly has more pros than cons...

At the moment it would appear that the US Universities are happy to promote the use of Google Docs to their students but the UK take up appears to be a little slower. Personally I view it as a tiny step toward the holy grail of 'cloud computing' and anything that points us in that direction has to be a good thing. But, will it take off? Only time will tell...

Have any Univesities out there started to promote Google Docs to students or are you adopting a more organic growth strategy?!