The Worldmapper has some unique views of mapping data and probably the most interesting one to me was through international power usage by type. The data is based back in 2002 or 2001, but still interesting to note the differences between hydroelectic power, oil power, gas power, coal power, and nuclear power:

Hydroelectric

Oil

Gas

Coal

Nuclear

Fascinating to see which countries rely on only one major source of power such as South Africa on coal or how the United States consumes every type available for power generation. I am surprised at the amoung of oil power Japan uses as I had thought Japan had reduced a lot of their reliance on oil to focus more on nuclear power. South America heavily uses hydroelectric power, but am unsure as to whether that is due to low power usage or millions of dams along the many rivers snaking through the Amazon.

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Very well written article by Slightly Shady SEO on Google’s user data empire. Read it in full to understand how pervasive Google’s information about, well, everyone is.

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I had wanted to do an in-depth post on noting what you could do with Google Adword’s new ability to show actual search numbers, but All Things SEM did a fabulous job of the ideas that ran through my head when I heard about this news.

Instead I’ll just remark that there are two important types of people humans listen to: The Pessimist (seen here as Smackdown) vs. The Optimist (seen here as All Things SEM).

The Pessimist takes the news of Adwords showing search numbers by beginning in this way:

The problem is, however, that those numbers are meant for people doing research into PPC traffic. The numbers shown have very little to do with what people actually search on using Google.com.

Often times they will claim the mantle of “Realist” insisting that the Optimist is naive in the approach. Yet, the instinctual drive towards thumbing down new information limits the boundaries of what is possible.

The Optimist takes the news in this way:

More Accurate Data

Better Upfront Planning

Click Through Rates for SERPs

Title and Description Testing

Improved PPC and SEO Synergies

The Optimist takes down ideas and creatively comes up with new possibilities to test and use in order to create new opportunities and improve upon existing campaigns. Yes, sometimes that leads to wrong paths and errors, but without trying and testing, then you are left with a stagnant campaign.

I prefer to take the path of creativity and new ideas rather than shooting down new possibilities and thus why All Things SEM goes into my RSS feed. You want someone who sits down and thinks of all the possible ways to work with and use new data rather than throw it to the wind.

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How aware are you when you focus on something? Click and view the test first before reading on:

The Awareness Test

(more…)

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A short article over at Inc.com about workers struggling with data overloading made me consider whether or not we really are overloaded with data. Personally I believe that there is certainly such a thing as data overload, but that this does not necessarily mean that important information is easier lost in the long-run for everyone.

Yes, there will be some people who will not be able to handle going through so much data or even trying to figure out some scientific method to the madness (think of some kind of SEO Science) and they will lose their competitive advantage over millions of others.

I’m more interested in those that can rise above the short-run problems of too much data and learn how to become better researchers in order to find that needle in a haystack at a faster rate. IE: Rather than just continuing in the normal search pattern as they always have (in order from first to last), but rather through some innovative algorithmic approach that uses some rather magnetic tools to find that special needle.

Sure, you have to be careful about what kind of data you could be losing or missing out on through some abrogated researching, but in the end, I personally believe the benefits outweigh the costs.

Bring on the data I say! Plop it down in front of me and let me work my wonders and find that interesting tidbit of useful information.

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Google currently provides a very nice and free analytics program that does wonders in helping online marketers somewhat accurately analyze how their performance is doing (far better than TV Nielson ratings in my opinion or magazine trackings). That said, I’ve come across clients that refuse to use Google Analytics as they are afraid of Google potentially becoming their competitor and using the data within analytics against them. Kevin Gold at Search Marketing Standard (great magazine in my opinion by the way) feels that for the most part Google isn’t going to use its analytics for evil purposes:

[T]he other day I overheard a conversation about Google and how advertisers will not use their Analytics or Optimizer products because of the “big brother” fear. At other times, I have heard website owners claim that Google wiped out their business overnight through some diabolical plot to support other “preferred’ websites.

Who knows…certainly I suppose undercurrents lurk mysteriously in the unknowns…it seems to be happening in politics lately where bribes, influences and other pressures force less than ethical decisions. But I am not sure I believe the big brother fear or the other conspiracy theories. The bigger you get the greater level of scrutiny you receive from governmental and watch dog groups.

For me, I’ll happily use Google Analytics , Optimizer and any other quality product they launch to make my clients more and more money and leave the conspiracy theorists to their own beliefs.

I agree with Kevin on happily using Google Analytics, it truly is a great product (and Google Optimizer looks nice as well), but one always should (one would be very naive otherwise) keep a watchful eye on a powerful corporation (just like you would for the government or any powerful person) to see what they could possibly do with all that data.

Let’s take a look at some other examples in order to give an idea of how things could go wrong:

• UK ID card data loss: Accidental loss of data that could actually derail a compulsory ID in the UK.
• VA personal data loss: A second time upon which the VA loss valuable data on its people.
• Yahoo providing personal data of dissidents: Yahoo settled a lawsuit over providing dissident data to the Chinese government which resulted in arrests of pro-democratic protestors.

And yet, Google wants to expand further into online data storage?

It may seem like Google is the “Do No Evil” company at this point in time, but what comes of the day when there is new management? No longer is there a concern about the scrutiny as the new management may think it can get away with the data it has.

Oh, and just because a corporation or government is bigger does not mean it will be less likely to avoid trouble–otherwise the United Nations would be the cleanest government around the world.

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Demerzel’s bias: I work for an online advertising agency, I love working with Google Analytics, and I just plain love working with analytics data.

Found from Andrew Sullivan’s blog originally on The Guardian:

Web statistics are complicated at the best of times, and video throws up even more problems. If a site embeds a piece of YouTube video, for example, should that user or that view be credited to the host site or the site where the video lives? Once a download is on someone’s desktop, how does the broadcaster know if it is ever watched? And how can broadcasters best track on-screen advertising?

To make sure there is an understanding (and to clarify what I presume Jemima Kiss was referring to) web statistics in the form of stat counters is rather basic whereas web statistics in the form of web analytics (Google Analytics, Site Catalyst/Omniture, WebTrends, etc.) is complicated, but that does not mean that measuring data is any less valid due to its complexity. (more…)

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