Personalize, Don’t Pander, With Unique Content

Everyone likes to feel special, but feeling singled out is a different thing entirely.  Several companies seem to have failed to make that distinction in recent days, and now IAC/Ask, Acclaim, and American Airlines are paying the price for it in the public's eye.

Web 2.0 Expo: Avinash Kaushik and Testing

One of the most interesting sessions to me at Web 2.0 Expo was fellow analytics blogger Avinash Kaushik’s session called “Click the Big Red Button : Tips & Techniques for Optimizing Conversion and A/B Testing”. I was looking forward to it because even though I’ve been big into testing for years, I still feel like the majority of the web world is so far away…

Paid Links Economy

Measuring the quality of an ad system Many bloggers and other website owners around the world aren’t selling their content these days, they’re financing their site with advertising. Almost every ad system seems to be a compromise. You can measure this compromise across different parameters: is the ad relevant? Is it unobtrusive? Is it disclosed? Is the product or service advertised fair to users? Is…

Web 2.0 Expo & Knowledge As Power

With 10,000 people at Web 2.0 Expo, a curtain was pulled back to reveal the room adjoining the echo chamber.  With more people than Techcrunch subscribers, you had to ask, "who are these people?"  Oh, right, our markets and communities.  People of the web, perhaps with more zeal or entrepreneurial interest than people who "get their news from the web."  The diversity was really refreshing…