Category: Web 2.0

I’m using Facebook in the past few months. At first I only accepted friend invitations. Then, I’ve also participated in the different games that I was invited to. I got more serious when I looked for people and invited them to be my friends, and then invited them to play Facebook games with me.

The next (and somewhat risky phase) was installing the Firefox extension for Facebook. Getting short notifications of my Facebook friends’ activities was amusing. These notifications, plus quick links on the toolbar are problematic, since they consume time. Yet these intrusions are still controllable.

My current problem is with the Facebook applications that send emails. It’s enough having notifications when I log on to Facebook. I don’t need an email notification for every semi-automatic invite. It becomes spammy. When I invite people to some application / game in Facebook and final step looks like an email address that is about to be sent, I immediately click on “Forget it”. I send only invitations with inner notifications

There are lots of social networks out there. Some say that there are more communities than people. Facebook is a good social network, since it’s quite user friendly, has a clean style and gets new applications all the time. Another reason for its success is that it has lots of users. Well, the big mass made it successful. The chicken and and the egg I guess…

Google Analytics stopped counting bounce visits when calculating the average time on site. The new numbers began showing up on July 20th.

I finally received a satisfying answer from the Google Analytics support team, following this post. This explains the jump in the Avg. time on site metric.
Here’s a quote from their support team:

Previously, the Average Time on Site had been calculated as the total time on site for all visits divided by the total number of visits. Both the total time on site and total number of visits included bounces.

As of July 20, 2007, we began reporting the Average Time on Site as the total time on site for all visits (excluding bounces) divided by the total number of visits (excluding bounces). This change also affected data from earlier dates, not just newer data.

Because bounces have been removed from this calculation, you may notice a significant increase in the average amount of time spent on your site. Please be assured that we have in no way changed your data, only the way
that the Average Time on Site is being calculated.

I still wonder why they made this change, and also why they hadn’t reported it on their offical blog.
Anyway, it’s good knowing what this jump in numbers was all about.

Update: Google has returned to the previous policy: Bounce hits are counted as well. So now the equasion of Avg. Time on site is back to: time of all the visits divided by the total number of visits.
Thanks to Bryan for notifying me.

Google Analytics‘ Average Time on Site has mysteriously jumped to much longer times. This big leap in numbers on past days is strange. Am I supposed to feel better now, believing that my readers have actually spent double time on my sites?

I remember seeing an average time on site of 2:50 minutes on a specific day, and suddenly I see 5:23. On another day, I remember seeing about 3 minutes, and now I see over 7 minutes.

This week, Google Analytics abandoned their old interface. Only the new well styled interface can be viewed. I still miss the “by hour” analysis that isn’t seen in the new interface. Maybe there’s a connection between both events.

Anyway, I haven’t seen a report on it elsewhere on the web (using Google’s search).

Did anyone else run into this strange phenomenon?

Update, May 3rd 2009: Also in my forex blog, numbers have moved strangely.

Check out about a Forex Demo Account.

Reports from the last few days are suggesting that a Service Pack for Windows Vista is due very soon. Good news!

Microsoft’s new operating systems are usually shaky at first. Windows 98 had to be totally rewritten. After a service pack or two, the operating systems become more stable and more reliable.

I haven’t switched to Windows Vista. I still stick to my Windows XP (SP2). Although Linux is becoming more and more friendly, especially with Ubuntu, switching to something totally new is a big leap. Also for people who are attached to the computer for many hours. Also for programmers…

So, I’ll still check out the reviews on Windows Vista SP1, but now I can seriously switching to it.