Blog Statistic Tool from BlogCatalog

BlogCatalog, a blogger community, has introduced a statistic tool suite for weblogs. The suite has the full functionality of up to date statistic tools, easy installation, real time data, tracking of visitors and traffic sources. There is a further point that might be of special interest. The statistic tool, too, is able to track Feedburner and Twitter subscribers.

Short URL's with Tracking

Business Thursday: URL abbreviation services are useful tools to make a long url suitable in many cases. They might be easy to type and look better and even might be necessary because a long url may broke into several parts and become unclickable or to post to microblogging services. Some services do offer advanced features that make these even useful in any case. Depending on the aim this might be earnings by advertising, managing shortened url's, a better look by a generic name and especially statistics to track the number of clicks.

BudURL is a service with a couple of features and url tracking. It is especially designed for tracking and offers a comprehensive statistics suite. There are charts available and the service tracks clicks by locations. The service even factors in possible effects to search engine marketing and has the option to create several generic link names to test click through rates. The service is designed for business usage and future features are announced.

Another service offering statistics and tracking is tweetburner. It has been launched to track Twitter posts. Meanwhile some additions are made to track links posted to friendfeed, too. There is a bookmarklet plugin for browsers to abbreviate and post url's while surfing. Most clicked links are visible at the homepage and an api for developers exists.

There are a couple of other interesting services. bit.ly describe themselves as a simple service to shorten url's, but there is an api to access further features and stats, too. A description of all the features is avaible at the blog. bit.ly is a development by the switchAbit Team, that is developing social networking tools.

Last but not least there is the Snipurl service also available by the domains Snipr and Snurl. This service is available in several languages and offers an account to manage url's. There is also a browser plugin to shorten url's while surfing. A browser plugin is also offered by TinyURL.com, one of the oldest services. A new feature they are offering is a preview of the url where a user becomes redirected to and there is a form to put the service at a website.

There are always new services coming up to shorten url's. As there is really a new generated need related to new applications like social networking it will be interesting to watch upcoming business models.

Social Media Statistics and Trends

Up to date statistics about social media usage have been reported today by several blogs. Here are some key figures.

The most amazing number is about Twitter, which by 419 % has had the largest growth rate compared to one year ago. This may explain the many tools and the popularity of microblogging. Ning, a supplier of customizable social media software is second with 387 % and third Tagged with 352 %. The only vertical network within the toplist is Last.fm, a music site. MySpace is still the largest social media site followed by Facebook, but the growth rates have been 2 % compared to 100 %. In the following there is the article with an embedded sheet.

Twitter is Growing Like Crazy: Up 422 % in 12 Months

Another remarkable figure is about the usage of social media within enterprises. It is adopted to about 70 %. It is either used for marketing purposes and public relations by about 60 % of enterprises and to about 75 % for other business purposes. Enterprises have adopted various means from blogs to video sharing.

Report: Nearly 70% of Businesses Allow Social Media Usage

Video meanwhile has reached almost everyone at the net with 75 % of the US internet audience having watched video online in some way. The article is questioning the reliability of this figure and has a poll on the site. I added some further sources to the article stating that 48 % have visited a video sharing site in January and 70 % percent watched video online in March.

Comscore Says Almost Everyone (75%) in the US Now Watches Video Online
Increased Use of Video-sharing Sites
Internet video poised for explosive expansion in viewing

Last but not least there has been a coverage of a press release by blinkx stating that they are the fastest growing video site in the US and UK. blinkx offers several business opportunies with video.

blinkx Fastest Growing Video Site

Blog Statistics, Tools and Visitor Analytics

Business Thursday: There are a couple of statistical services specialized to weblogs and to analyse blog visitors. This delivers the needed knowledge to run a weblog the professional and commercial way as metrics and statistics are needed to sell e.g. adverts.

A free weblog statistics tool is Blog Tracker by IceRocket, a weblog search engine. Blog Tracker is counting the number of visitors and pages visited. It does analyse the locations visitors are coming from and their technical equipment. Everything is visualized and easy to overview. The integration into a blog is done by a simple code.

Another statistics and analytical tool that can be used at blogs is Google Analytics. This is a most comfortable tool. If you want to sell something this is the right tool for you as it is able to track visitor movements and sales. Elsewise you may have some stats that you do not need. Google does also operate Measure Map. This service has some very interesting analytical features related to blogs as it is able to track the number of comments, links or posts. Unfortunately they do not allow new customers actually, but do offer an announcement list.

FeedJit is another nice statistical service for bloggers offering some unique features. There are several widgets, which display information about the location of visitors and about the content of a blog. The location widgets show where visitors are coming from and where they do leave. The content widgets do recommend related posts or posts by popularity.

Doing Research using Twitter

This is a follow up post to The Twitter Phenomenon and useful Tools. It is about researching Twitter and about doing research by using Twitter. With over one million users there is a remarkable user base, which is large enough to research buzz at the social media sphere. The term buzz describes hot topics and trends at the live and social web. This especially is due as the user base often is deeply connected with other social media services.

For buzz monitoring there are a couple of services ready to use. One service to do so is TwitScoop. The buzz is shown by a tag cloud and hot topics are listed at the side. To get information about a special topic there is a search function. With Twist there is a tool for trend research. It lists the number of post by a timeline and enables to compare subjects and topics.

Twitter is a micro blogging service. This limits a message or posting to 160 characters and links to further information and sources are most important. By this the same is due to measuring the number and the popularity of links. To do so there are TwitterBuzz and Twitturly.

Another very nice service to get an insight in what is important at local areas is Twitter Local. This service enables to find information posted about cities or geographic areas. A very useful tool for monitoring local issues is the feed generator offered, which enables everyone to receive a newsfeed just with relevant local posts.

Beside doing research about and on Twitter there is a service enabling own reseach and polls on Twitter. This is StrawPoll. You can see some results at the StrawPoll homepage. Current polls may become watch by the StrawPoll Blog.

Last but not least there is the statistics page at the official Twitter blog to see what is going on within the community. To have a look at the stats of a particular account you may use TweetStats.