measurement

This spoon is smarter than us in the kitchen

It's not often that we have one of those why-didn't-I-think-of-that moments at Crave, but this is definitely an exception. That's probably why we just write about inventions instead of create them and retire.

The idea behind the aptly named "Spoon Scale" is as useful as it is disarmingly simple: Just scoop what you think you need and let the integrated digital meter do the fine-tuning. Showing immediate results on its built-in LCD, this battery-powered scooper is purportedly accurate to "down to the last 1⁄10 gram," according to OhGizmo--and, thankfully, can be programmed … Read more

Facebook's traffic may be plateauing. So what?

There's been a lot of buzz this week about Facebook's traffic leveling off or declining, and naturally, it's been accompanied by schadenfreude over the fact that the hottest start-up in Silicon Valley may soon be losing its laurels.

Blog chatter, unsurprisingly, is at a fever pitch.

Earlier this week, the U.K. arm of audience measurement firm Nielsen reported that traffic from several social-networking sites, including Facebook, had dipped from December 2007 to January 2008. Now, numbers from ComScore (reported Friday on TechCrunch), suggest that Facebook's U.S. traffic may be in trouble as well. Graphs … Read more

Data overload for video ads: Liquidus, TubeMogul, and Visible Measures

Video advertising online is certainly becoming more common, but it's still difficult to get a good handle on exactly the kind of impact those types of ads are having.

Three companies came to Demo to push their individual strategy on how to improve the placement of video ads and the information gathered about them.

Liquidus: This 6-year-old Web marketing company has come up with a quick way for digital cable providers to produce and push video classified ads to the Web and TV screens via video on demand. Liquidus' video publishing platform aggregates video ads from a variety of … Read more

Nielsen says it's not what sites you visit but how long you stay

In a move that will definitely favor viral video sites over search sites, Nielsen/NetRatings is going to start ranking Web sites by how long people spend on them instead of by how many page views they get.

"Although Nielsen already measures average time spent and average number of sessions per visitor for each site, it will start reporting total time spent and sessions for all visitors to give advertisers, investors and analysts a broader picture of what sites are most popular," according to the Associated Press. "Currently, sites and advertisers often use page views, a figure … Read more

Hoofing it at CES

If you're far from the madding crowd at CES and wishing you weren't, you can ease the pain in one of three ways: 1) Hop on a plane and join us (you'll probably have to fly standby at this point; 2) Read CNET's coverage; or 3) indulge in some schadenfreude.

Las Vegas' biggest trade show of the year makes Disneyland look like a day at the spa. Say you got dropped off by a cab at the back of South Hall at the Las Vegas Convention Center (henceforth, LVCC), and say your badge is at the … Read more

Webware Roundup

MeasuredUp gives people yet another place to complain

Frustrating service at restaurants and dry cleaning horror stories are all too common. When you have a bad customer service experience, it's likely you want to take action, but aside from the Better Business Bureau, where else can you turn? MeasuredUp is a new social networking site that exists solely to let people post their experiences (good and bad) with local businesses. Similar sites already exist. Yelp and Yahoo Local are two good examples of community-based sites that offer a place to swoon or gripe, but neither aim to inspire massive … Read more