The "Weekly WassUp" is a brief weekly overview of what has been showing up in "the feeds" in the last week.
In this issue:
- Oct. 20 : Apple bites back
- Oct. 21 : Gmail tests canned responses
- Oct. 22 : Google Analytics adds enterprise-class features
- Oct. 23 : Cloud computing with Amazon's EC2
- A Flemish top-level domain?
- nicepeople.be : Not playing so nice?
Oct. 20 : Apple bites back
In response to the Microsoft "I'm a PC" campaign (which followed the Seinfeld ads and was a response to the original 'Mac vs PC' campaign from Apple), Apple launches a new series of ads. And the tone gets a little darker...
More ads here, here and here.
Oct. 21 : Gmail tests canned responses
From Gmail Labs comes the feature to create 'canned responses' (aka 'auto-responder emails'). You can now create an email and set up a filter defining when that email should automatically be sent as a reply. The feature has to be enabled from the 'labs' tab in 'settings'. Beware: The sender of the automatic reply will always be <google account>+canned.response@gmail.com (eg. 'luon+canned.response@gmail.com' for the LUON gmail account), which makes it less usable for marketing purposes since you would probably want to use a sender address from your own domain. Also the subject of the email will always be the subject of the originating message, preceded by 'Re: '.
Oct. 22 : Google Analytics adds enterprise-class features
At the eMetrics Summit in Washington D.C, Google unveiled a major update to its free web analytics solution 'Google Analytics'. The new features will be gradually rolled out over the next couple of weeks, except for two that will first be launched in private beta before being released to the larger public.
- Advanced segmentation: You can now view your data for a specific segment of your visits. A segment can be a predefined segment (eg. 'returning visitors'), or a new segment created using the segment builder. Then, you can apply one or more of these segments in all reports to current or
historical data, and even compare segment performance side by side. This feature will probably have an impact on how you can set up Google Analytics profiles and filters and deal with analytics data. More on that once the link shows up in my account 
.
- Custom reports: These are reports you create via a drag-and-drop interface to give you a specific view of your data. You can add different metrics (columns), dimensions (rows) and sub-dimensions (drill-down in a row).
- Motion charts: In March 2007, Google acquired the Trendalizer software used by Hans Rosling in his memorable TED presentation. This now lead to the incorporation of 'motion charts' in Google Analytics presenting your data in 5 dimensions visualized by x- & y-axis, bubble color, bubble size and time. This makes it a very powerful tool to detect evolutions across your data.
- New account management dashboard: The new dashboard will have simpler navigation between accounts and profiles and will have a dashboard of key performance metrics upfront upon login. Also you'll find a couple of interface refreshes across the Google Analytics screens.
- Data Export API : Currently in private beta, Google (finally) releases an Application Programming Interface (API) allowing external applications to pull data from Google Analytics. This allows for extending Google Analytics data with own data or creating powerful mash-ups.
- Integrated reporting with AdSense: Last in line is a tight integrating with Google's advertising solution (letting you put advertising on your site and make money from it). Now you can see your revenue and impression data alongside your site traffic data. This feature was also launched in private beta.
Oct. 23 : Cloud computing with Amazon's EC2
Cloud computing is hot. Hot like Web 2.0 was hot. And like Web 2.0, there are a lot of different definitions floating around. In general, it comes down to being able to 'outsource' computing (being it hard calculations, hosting of a website or creating spreadsheets) to 'the cloud' (which is a metaphor of the Internet) in a 'plug-and-play' manner. The most well-known examples probably are SaaS ('Software As A Service') as a general term, and solutions like Google Apps. One of the big players in cloud computing (which is also tightly linked to Web 3.0) is Amazon. And last week, Amazon's EC2 cloud computing service came out of beta. EC2 allows you to easily set up a server over the Internet. You can choose from a number of predefined configurations to start from and pay on a per-hour basis. Together with the out-of-beta release comes an SLA and support for Windows Server 2003 and Microsoft SQL Server.
A Flemish top-level domain?
Back in June 2008 the ICANN committee announced they would open up the way for a whole new range of top-level domain names (TLD's). Top-level domain names are basically the extensions of domain names, like '.com' or '.be'. For now, there are around 21 TLD's but with this new policy, it will be possible to create a slew of new domain
extensions.
Any group or entity can submit a proposal for a new top level name to
be approved by ICANN. And apparently, one of these organisations will be the Flemish government. They are investigating the possibility of creating a specific Flemish top-level domain besides the existing .be TLD for Belgium. At this point, there is no decision yet on which TLD will be requested. The proposal should be ready by mid 2009.
nicepeople.be : Not playing so nice?
Older news that recently came in: The creators of nicepeople.be were convicted before the court of Huy (Belgium) because the website asked for the email addresses of five of your friends upon registering. These five people then received an email from nicepeople.be (instead of from the new registrant) with an invitation to become part of the nicepeople community (a commonly used viral marketing trick). According to Belgium law however, this is not allowed because these people didn't give their consent to send them the emails. Result: a fine and € 10.000 for each new breach. The case now goes to appeal. To be safe, viral emails should always have the website user (entering the email addresses) as the sender of the emails. This user should also have the option to change the text of the email.
