Google Analytics dotnet api working!

It’s been some months already that google anounced it’s api for google analytics.

As I was interested in using this API in dotnet I was disappointed to see that there was no such library yet.

There are some examples on the internet building up the calls yourself, but that’s to error sensitive for someone who is not a professional programmer. To start with google has 3 different kinds of logins etc.

So I was happy to find a thread on google about a dotnet api for analytics, and found that google had adopted the source code but had not put it in the build yet. In that thread is a link to the source (release 933). In the trunk directory is a dll for the analitics (cs/lib/release)

So how do you make this work?
Install the google data API and download the Analytics dll 
Download the examples from the samples/analytics directory.

Start your visual studio, create a new application, and then register all the dll’s you need (see the import in the .cs file) and copy the code from the example.

Then you can call the analytics in dotnet!

And a tip: imagine combining the analytics with the graphics from fusion charts……

 

The next generation: Websitebuilders 2.0

My first program I wrote using hypertext technology was in 1993, the first time I created an html page was in 1995. It were times of discovery and very ugly interfaces, using black backgrounds and green letters, like the 1970 unix terminals.  In that time anybody who new html and some cgi programming had a job as a designer , programmer and webmaster at the same time.

 Then there was this time of upgrading browsers, and plugins, better java, flash, pdf’s etc. and there was always new things to learn. And companies learned how to create better websites with better technologies that people actually visited. Words like findability and usability appeared.

But there still was no real idea of what would make a website successfull.

Nowadays you can see the buzz about findability, availability, accessability, trust, usability, and relevance when talking about successfull websites. The softer the goal (like usability and relevance) the harder it gets for them.

What is obvious at this moment  is that most websitebuilders have mastered the technology, and will continue to do that, but that the gap towards the softer skills is difficult to master, and getting the website aligned to the business instead of the other way round really is a challenge.

Only few can really say they help add significant value to their clients business in building the website. Full service internet companies that help their clients to reach success with their website afterwards are really scarce at the moment. Yet I believe the websitebuilder company 2.0 should be just that, full service, from strategy till website management, supporting the client all the way to success.

That the 2.0 company will have a different business model is obvious, it will collect on the success of ot’s client, not on the work done. 

A Win-win situation!

 

Internet scorecard

My blog and website is called the webscorecard, but you also see the term internet scorecard on the web. As with so many wordgames, it comes down to having a customer perspective or not.

In this case the term internet scorecard is a bit off target, I think. It’s the difference of the technology – internet – and the use of the internet through browsers.  I think technology is not that important, it’s the how that’s important.

Both terms reference to the balannced scorecard, but I suspect that internet scorecards are not about the customer.

Anyway, you can check out my website on www.webscorecard.nl

 

Validating your idea

While on hollyday, i’ve been reading a book called the marketing guru’s by chris murray. It’s a summary of many important books in marketing.

One of these summaries is about the popcorn report by Faith Popcorn, which is a report about trends that are (going to) happen in the consumer world. I found this very interesting, because a new product and service should in most cases connect to a main trend to stand a chance in the marketplace. This could be a powerfull tool for validation of ideas.

This week i applied the trends to a new website and drew some conclusions on how to improve on it by adhering to more trends. A talk with the projectmanager showed that the second release will have most of the funtionalities i saw, just by using these trends!

On her businesses website she says the trends are not rocketscience. “The decisive force in every successful marketing effort, today and in the future, is cultural relevance”. Translating the trends into producs and services and communication is the real trick.

But to be able to do that you should know where the product or service hooks up with that culture, and there the trends are very usefull.

Just by checking what trends apply to your service, and which almost, you can adapt your idea to include more trends, which will make your potential for success bigger. There still has to be an underlying customer value proposition though.

As an example,some energy-companies use these trends blatantly: one sells “green energy” (save our society trend), the other one calls on our nationialistic sense and beliefs (clanning). Both started selling the same product basically. The green energy company though, has altered the product, separating it from the other, using a trend.

 

What is a mission?

One of the prerequisites for setting up a webscorecard is that the business has a clear understanding of its strategy. A strategy can be defined without a mission, but it helps to set the direction by defining a mission.

The mission tells everybody what you are trying to do. It’s something that is true today and may be true for ever (or not).

The position in society is not always the motive for creating the business. Businesses may be started because the entrepreneur wanted to make money or because he likes to run the kind of business he is going to create.

But inconsient or not, a business must have a market to serve, in order to survive. They must offer some kind of benefit to that market. Therefore, I think that any organization tries to fullfill some need a person, group or the whole society may have. 

The mission statement shows the purpose of the organization. You could say the mission statement is the description of how the organization will fullfill a need in society.

If business would be a battlefield, the mission would be the ideology for which you fight, the ultimate goal. It’s the outline for all the activities of the “army”

On my website www.webscorecard.nl I show how to write a  missionstatement.