Tag Archives: google

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UnknownA bunch of weeks ago I decided to increase sales for AdRotate using Google AdWords. I watched their marketing video’s on how cool it would be and how much I would increase revenue. The only thing they didn’t mention was the only revenue I’d increase was theirs…

Obviously the first 2 weeks were a disaster. I wasn’t quite sure what I was doing and I my bids were too high. I burned through the first 50 euros very quickly. Then some dude from AdWords called me and told me I should use better keywords and had some ideas to start a “branding” campaign. Which I think was just a sneaky trick to up-sell ads. Since a new campaign also requires a separate budget, thus suddenly I would be spending more per day had I activated it as he suggested.

I didn’t know proper keywords at that time, so I kinda decided I would do that later. Then realized the new budget, next to my existing campaign and didn’t start the “branding” thing at all. Why? Branding is good… Sure. But I don’t know what my users want to see, and Googles advice for this campaign was “Use keywords of random items that your clients may look for, this can be as wide as cars, fishing equipment and airplane tickets”. In my ears this sounded a bit too vague to be useful. So after thinking that through, I didn’t do it.

I did however log in daily and spend almost an hour tweaking my bids, keywords, ads and all that fluff. I burned through 200 euros fairly quick with a “successful” campaign which yielded me 0% increase in revenue. I used tons of keywords which according to Google would have high traffic and were of “high quality”. Hundreds of thousands of impressions and very few clicks.

Then another rep called me in response to a Trademark issue with with of my ads and I asked her some advise to increase the usefulness of AdWords. She told me to make more campaigns with similar budgets (up-selling again?) and with that separate the campaigns to show only on their Display network (AdSense users) and the Search network (Google Search pages). I asked her why. She told me it’s her standard advise to everyone she talks to. Buuuuut, this contradicted the previous reps advise head on. He told me it’s best to keep it all in one campaign. So combine the Display and Search network in one campaign. She also advised me to change all keywords to a “narrow search”.

I’ve tried her advise too, lowered the daily budget a bit and separated the campaigns, changed a bunch of keywords and both campaigns are dead in the water now. No increase in sales, very few impressions and even less clicks. And no extra sales. And yes. All ads are in position 3 or higher.

So. almost €450 euros spent on something that yields nothing and apparently has no clear standard on best practises. If even their support/sales reps are not agreeing on what to do. I never saw one of my own ads anywhere because Google carefully prevents that. So I don’t even know if my ads are shown anywhere for real.

Your experience? What did you do to make it work? If at all…

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wordpress-statsOver the past few weeks I’ve been checking some of my sites statistics a bit more closely to see where people go on the site. Where they come from and maybe how I can improve the site based on such numbers. One of the plugins I use for this is Automattic’s Jetpack (WordPress stats).

After a few days I noticed the trend where Google would send a whole bunch of people to my site from all over the world. Good. A few days after that I noticed that *every* language Google is presented in is shown as a separate site in my referrer stats.

So for the past weeks every day Google dominates my referrer stats rendering it completely useless to see where people come from. Why not just bunch all Google domains up in one entry/row so other sites get a chance to be visible too. This is kinda useless :(

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Years ago I’ve learned that Google offers a Instant Messaging thing. It worked with Apples iChat, Adium and a bunch of other apps that supported Jabber / XMPP protocols. Fun!

Some people used it. I’ve encourage people to use it more and drop the archaic and always broken MSN/Live Messenger. I have used it for countless hours to chat and use the webcam with my then girlfriend. It was a useful thing to have.

Then about 18 months ago Skype got my attention. The girlfriend turned out to be not so much a girlfriend. And I haven’t used GoogleTalk since. The Messenger has literally been active and unused for almost 15 months. I’ve checked the chat logs. People moved away from it apparently.
Google would decide for me that I should be friends with certain people I emailed from my Gmail account and they ended up in my friends list. A thing I disagreed with and annoyed me to no end. Removing them was no option since the first time I would receive a message from them or send them an email they would be added again. So they’re not my friends at all, they’re Googles friends then. And I’m not allowed to make up my own mind about who I want to talk to.

And so with that annoyance, the lack of people using it it has been dormant for well over a year. Useless.

Last month I took the step of no longer starting the Messenger app. This freed up some space in my OS X Dock. And other than that nothing changed in my life, workflow or anything because of it. Odd, really. Since in itself it’s a useful service. And with so many people using Gmail and a bunch even dared to try Google+ you’d think a chat feature would see wider adoption and use.

But no…

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Today I took the Nexus 7 out in the city and rampage around in search of a computer shop. Using the hotspot option in my iPhone i funneled some 3G interwebs to the Nexus 7.

The screen:

Practically unusable even at full brightness. I had to seek out sunscreens and indoor areas to read it. Even after enabling auto brightness it didn’t work very well. However, for a glossy screen this was to be expected.

Comparing to my iPhone it was quite a poor experience though. The iPhone was much better readable with a manual setting of about 50% brightness.

Search results:

When i search for “computer shop” or “computer parts” I get decent results. Except, and I found this out today, there aren’t any shops nearby, apparently. Pity.

But when searching with the same phrases in Dutch, the results were a lot less useful and much more colorful. Searching for “computer winkel” (winkel = shop) I found practically anything from Insurance offices to Ice vendors. And a few computer related stores. But not the actual computer shops I was looking for. Which renders the “local” function on my Nexus a lot less useful.

Talking:

We’ve tried to talk to the Nexus 7 too. In english it works pretty well. But in Dutch not at all. Even though Dutch is in the list of languages. The auto-language detector doesn’t recognize Dutch and when manually setting Dutch it doesn’t work very well either. Thinking we were talking about bicycles when we wanted “something to eat” (“iets te eten” vs “fietsen”) which in dutch can sound quite similar.

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Yup, I bought a Nexus 7 – The 8GB version, in black! Had one shipped from the UK over the weekend and have been playing with it today. Raving reviews everywhere. So it must be good. And now I have one! Yay!

Obviously since it’s powered by Android and thus Google you will be spammed with Google features but man it’s overwhelming. Every (stock) app screams Google which is almost a synonym for “share your data!” Sadly…

I never really used Android before. Tapped around a bit on some devices but never *actually* looked into it. For the past 5 years I’ve used iOS exclusively on my mobile devices. So bear with me. It’s all new and strangely exciting.

But why -

… Must every scrolling display go all the way up so I have to scroll down again when I go back a screen (in the play store for example).

… Are apps hidden in a sort of home menu?

… Are all the icons different sizes and messy looking?

… Can’t I just hook up the tablet to my iMac and synchronize data to it? More below.

… Doesn’t Android natively support CalDAV?

… Is the default music player so poorly designed?

… Do widgets not update with the new settings? (renaming an email account for example)

… Do keyboards not pop-up automatically when I’m filling in forms or login fields?

To just name a few things that make no sense to me or are just plain silly…

How to sync from a Mac?

I had expected that the (according to many people) best and most awesome mobile OS could interface with pretty much anything to sync data. Turns out Android doesn’t even support CalDAV natively. At least not for non-Google services. And what about getting my music or images on the Nexus? I don’t use Picasa, or Google+ for that matter. So I just want to sync a few folders.

Using some silly Finder-like browser called ‘Android File Transfer’ which shows a series of folders on the Nexus 7 to which i can drag files or remove them. How very very primitive. My Siemens phone 15 years ago worked just like it. Manual drag and drop? I realize this is in part something Apple did by not supporting anything but i-devices in iTunes for example. But come on, even Rim has a sync tool for Blackberry for Mac.
I read Windows works the same way, except you don’t need the app but can just use Explorer. Terrible!

My mobile office… Not so much.

No calendaring on Android for me, since it doesn’t do CalDAV. In order to get my contacts on the Nexus I need to tell Google who’s who first. I can’t just put my contacts on there. My contacts are in iCloud already. But with the lack of syncing they also need to be at Google’s servers? With a sync app I would be able to….
I looked at a bunch of alternate calendar apps that do CalDAV. But those looked so horrible. aCAl and the like… Go follow a design course!

And seemingly no ‘real’ office suite either. There is Quickoffice, some 3rd party set of tools. And a bunch of others that are similar. But no actual Word processing app from a company I know that actually makes the file formats like Microsoft or Apple. On the iPad I have Pages and Numbers. For now I’ve settled for the free and simple app ‘Text Editor’. Which works much like Notepad in Windows. Perhaps I’ll get something better once I’m fully settled in with the Nexus and I’m ready to spend money on apps for it.

Google all over the place!

While Google wants, and seemingly needs, all your data, privacy a count of your nose hair and then some. Google actually puts it to use in a way that’s kinda useful and not just for Ads. Because of the Ads, Google is something I’ve never really bothered with besides search so some things are probably just new to me and have been around for a while. But the location-based app that looks for restaurants, shops and whatever I want actually looks kinda nice, and fast! I have a similar but much less polished thing on my iPhone. But this looks actually useful because the Google database is huge and the app integrates all the various features nicely.

The Google+ integration looks ok too. I haven’t really used it yet but the various share buttons are in the right spot so I don’t have to switch to the Google+ app all the time.

Great device!

Not too much to say here. It works, it has all the features i need and want and I wish the iPad was this size. The Nexus 7 just feels right.
It’s cheap, but doesn’t feel cheap. The touchscreen feels good and the size is just great. The camera is a bit low quality, but gives a good picture for casual use. And I’ll probably never take pictures. Waving around a tablet to take pictures make little sense to me anyway. For its low price the Nexus seems super super awesome fast. I’ve been trying out many things, stream high dev Youtube and websites, music, stream movies in HD… No noteworthy stuttering or slowdown whatsoever. Which is above expectations really.

As I will be mainly using this thing for media ‘consuming’ as it’s called. It’s a nice addition to the Plex compatible devices. I can now watch a movie on my iMac, continue watching it on a random tablet or iPhone lying around and finish it on one of the Mac Minis elsewhere in the house ;) . All streaming in 720p or higher, depending on the device and connection speed. Hell yeah!