I would really love this to have worked but unfortunately it just isn’t quite there. There is actually nothing wrong with the hardware, well mostly anyway. OK, so there is a major issue with the hardware.

First issue is it uses an FM signal to pick up the traffic information which of course is digital and when digital reception is bad, it’s useless. So the problem I have living 38.9kms from the CBD is it won’t pickup any traffic until I’m almost 1/3 of the way in, by then I’m already stuck in traffic.

According to Suna who provide the traffic signal to the Navman and the RTA, who in NSW provide the traffic information data to Suna, there is never ever any traffic on the M2. Which of course the M2 is always a $5 carpark.

Problem is if you follow it around it’s suggested new route, you never going to know if there was any traffic there any way. Therein lies the second issue, the data it self is where it all falls over. Because it never picks up traffic on the M2 you then start to doubt the system and start ignoring it because you can never gauge it’s success, you can only gauge it’s failures.

So basically I still use it all the time as a gauge, but you just can’t rely on it. Having said that, a better FM signal and more accurate traffic data and it would be defiantly worth it.

Imagine you have a web site with two pages, both pages containing text and 3 images.

If someone comes opens the home page, clicks to the second page and then leaves you will have;

1. 1 visit
2. 2 page views
3. 8 Hits

They have visited the website and no matter how many pages they look at, it is one visit until the session is closed. Sessions are usually ended by the user closing the browser or clicking through to another website.

During that visit they viewed two pages, the home page as one and then the second page.

Each page records 4 hits, the 3 images plus the HTML page containing the images and text. The server has produced 4 files in total for the home page, but because they opened the second page that also contains 3 images and another HTML page, that adds another 4 hits.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could walk into a dealer, say I want a Chevy Camaro, let’s make it black, the bonnet to have two nostrils, no make it one. Spoiler to look like…etc. The dealer gives the specs to a CGI guy, he produces this video;

And then the dealer laser cuts the body components to the CGI references.

It’s doable!!

The title comes from the <title>This is my Link</title> tag.

The description similarly comes from the META tag <meta name=”description” content=”The Description” />

The image basically looks at all the images on the page over 100 px, and then sorts it by the largest image first, and then position. The image can also have a style display of none so that it is hidden from the browser, but visible to FB.

Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution – Defy Physics from Resin on Vimeo.

I have recently tested out Need For Speed Shift and although it is very good, and it is also aimed at more the driving experience rather than the arcade style game, but I would certainly still class it as a game. Where as Live For Speed is most certainly a simulator rather than a game.

LFS is that good that you can feel an individual wheel locking through the steering wheel feedback if your using a G25 or G27. Even beyond that, LFS has released news that the new version to some has a whole new tyre physics model, how many simulators/games out there have a tyre physics model, let alone one that complicated.

If you want the real feel of racing, away from the track, get yourself a Logitech G27 or even a second hand G25 and get into LFS!!

More details on the Rockingham update.

Event based

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Hey-Hey-Its-Saturday/39974319048?ref=nf

Using Facebook to create enthusiasm for an event by regularly updating fans and reminding them of the event.

Product updates

http://www.facebook.com/zazz.com.au

Companies that have a continually changing product base can update they’re content daily and then posting new content to Facebook/Twitter.

Brand Awareness

http://www.facebook.com/JimBeamRacing

Using SMO to build brand awareness by continually updating fans and followers with information on their interest, which is particularly supportive of entities that do not have a physical product, like sporting teams for example.

Link Grabbing

http://www.facebook.com/machinima

News websites rely on content that creates interest and in this case it’s gaming. This website features gaming news to build readership, then with readership you can sell advertising. To increase their readership they post links with content previews to Facebook and Twitter and effectively making SMO a portal to their website.

Campaign

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Thredbo-Snow-Resort/18304011581?ref=ts

Campaign based SMO is used to generate noise around the campaign.

This example was from back in the Clem’s days where we created a campaign for Thredbo cantered around “The Big Dump”. We created dynamic banners showing snow depth, Facebook page and Facebook application also showing snow depth in anticipation of the big snow down fall.

User registered on the website thebigdump.com.au to win a free lift pass when the big dump hit. Because there were a limited number of tickets, we built a Flash game which picked a winner with the highest score every 5 minutes for a day.

For example if your Anaytics code is at the end of the page and another JavaScript code fails it can stop Anaytics from loading. If a browser has disabled JavaScript, which is not as likley these days, but JavaScript is a client side code and is run within the browser of the viewing computer, and there are some dodgy computers out there!

Logfile statistics on the other hand read from the log files generated by the website engine, in this case IIS and include every hit on the website. These stats programs such as SmarterStats read the log files and process them into similar reports to Analytics.

As an example, my motorsport site nmd.com.au had the following stats for August;

Visits
Google Analytics: 4,765
SmarterStats:  26,965

Google Analytics only recorded 17.6% of the visits.

Page Views
Google Analytics: 9,116
SmartStats: 69, 710

Again Google Analytics only recorded 13% of the page views.

Google Analytics is still a great tool and should certainly be used to look for trends and percentages, but refer to logfiles when you look at totals!

Google Analytics cannot count

Why is it that producers, I’m assuming there was not a copywriter involved here, feel the need turn an EDM into a personal conversation. People get that these emails are sent to a shitload of people, don’t patronise the reader.