Archive for July, 2008

Should the City Auditor double check his own figures?

July 23, 2008 at 3:28 pm · Filed under General

Today the local news has been going overboard with the news that a City Hall employee had visited 349170 web site visits over a 5 month period. This information was apparently retrieved from the city auditor’s report regarding the performance of the City Hall print shop.

Here is a link to the news story.

It seems so amazing how someone could waste the tax payers money so casually and why the city fathers would let such a thing as this happen time and again.

So, I did a little math.

349170 visits / 5 months = 69834 visits per month.
69834 visits per month / 20 days = 3491.7 visits per day.
2327.8 visits per day / 8 hours = 436 visits per hour.
And this figure divided by 60 gives you 7.2 visits per minute.

I would like you to try and visit 7.2 sites per minute and then keep that pace up all day long. Then come back and do the same the next day for 5 months. Absurd, isn’t it?

Before you read any further, I want you to do something for me.
Visit these web sites and time yourselves. Just browse to these sites, and time yourselves. Then continue reading this post.
http://www.msn.com
http://www.yahoo.com
http://www.inrich.com
http://www.cnn.com.

Now I wouldn’t dont know this guy from Adam. I don’t even know if its a guy.

But let’s consider he comes to work at 8.00 am. sharp. By 8.01, he has already visited 7 web-sites.
By 8.02 his web-site count is 14.

How many of you have spent every moment at work on your computer?
Have you not visited the CNN news page or some such equally innoccous web-site to see why there was such a big ruckus on the road this morning?

By any means, the number of 7 web-sites per minute of his work time seems so totally unbelievable.

Has anyone of you ever clicked an innocent link from somewhere and got an unexpected shock when a porn site opened up?

Now I am a person who has been trained to see both sides. Also, I have long degrees after my name in Information Technology.

So I fired up my favorite recording tool and went to work.
The first site I visited : http:\\www.msn.com.
Why did I choose this? — Because many have this web-site as the default page when we start our browser. Its also called the home page.

Now here is the surprise: I recorded the total number of hits on the web-site to bring back this one page : It was 52.
Lets imagine for one minute that may be he has the city of richmond web-site as his home page : This site took 37 requests.
Yahoo.com : 40 requests
cnn.com :168 requests
and in a few seconds, the CNN page refreshed, now it was 180 requests.
inrich.com (local city newspaper web-site) : 126 requests

This means, in less than 1 minute, I had visited a total of 40 + 168 + 180 + 126 = 514 web site hits.

Remember, yahoo, msn, cnn etc are portals. Most of these web-sites let you customize what items you see on the site when you browse over to your web-site.

All these web-sites load on your browser in less than 3 seconds. But there is a separate hit on the web-site for each image, each link and each page item.

Each web-page that is visible to you is actually made up of many many components, some of which are loaded separately from the web-site.

Ok, so the employee might have erred by visiting web-sites he should not have visited during his work hours, especially porn sites. He should pay for that if he has actually done it.

But claiming on an official report something that could have been easily checked out seems to be a lapse of attention on the part of the city auditor Mr.Dalal. If he had done a little calculation, he might have seen that the numbers he quotes were impossibly high.

But then, when you are flying high, you do lose touch with the ground, don’t you?

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Are videos really the next best thing?

July 16, 2008 at 11:16 am · Filed under Search Engine Optimization ·Tagged , ,

Video has become the latest craze out there on the Internet Marketing scene.
Everybody is rushing to put their educational material and ezines into videos and mp3s. Some of my favorite marketers have their material as videos.

There are a number of options available to create videos and publish them for public consumption. Sites like Youtube.com allow you to effortlessly make available your creation to your consuming public.

A lot of ezines have already jumped on the band-wagon. But is video the answer for all your ills?
If you have not already converted your ezine to video format; hold on. Pull back for a moment and think.

Yes, a video will make you appear more human.
Yes they will connect more with you when you are doing the talking and you appear playing with your kids in the midst of talking about the recession.
Yes, a video will prove that you are up-to-date with the latest technology.

But if you are providing some serious information, to business consumers, think again!

If your consumer is a busy professional, will he have the time to sit through your 30 minute video to see what you have to say?

Or would he rather pick up an e-book or e-report which he can glance through at will?
I would!

I’ve begun avoiding videos in favor of books because I have the ability to go back and forth in the text. At a glance I can see what chapters I must read and what I already know. I really don’t want to spend 30 minutes to learn that I already knew the subject matter.

Another issue is that of printability. Your ebook can be printed and stored for future reading. I can carry it with me on the subway to read on the way to work. Can’t do that with your video unless I am very technology savvy or put additional effort into it.

Find the number of customers who routinely print out your ebook to read later. You may just be amazed at the number. Some like to make notes along the margins. Some like the feeling of holding the book in their hands. Some like to read on the bed. All this becomes impossible if your material is in the form of a video.

Having said that, there are reasons your customers may prefer to use your mp3 or watch your video. Its up to you to determine if your customers actually use your video.

You may also provide a transcript along with your video. This will help those customers who want the information, but do not have the time to sit through a 40 minute video or listen to an mp3 recording.

But if your customers do not overwhelmingly prefer the video, the amount of effort expended to create a video may just not be worth it.

You’ve been warned !

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