statistics

Sandberg: Facebook can build your business, and now we can prove it

Pretty much everyone in the audience at Sheryl Sandberg's talk on Tuesday morning as part of New York Advertising Week understood the meaning of the slide she displayed that read "Nielsen and Facebook are in a relationship." A nod to announcements on Facebook's homepage "news feed," the "in a relationship" phrase is now a recognizable slice of Internet culture--much as social network Facebook itself has become ubiquitous.

And Sandberg, Facebook's chief operating officer, hopes it will be just as ubiquitous in the advertising world. Her goal on Tuesday was to formally … Read more

Canadian cops armed with Big Blue analytics

IBM on Tuesday announced that Canada's Edmonton Police Service is using IBM business analytics technology to help reduce crime, improve force effectiveness, and increase public safety.

The goal of the software is to help law enforcement agencies "obtain the right information at the right time--even before a crime may have been committed--to inform police officers so they can stay on top of and prevent criminal activities, identify crime 'hot spots,' and ultimately reduce crime rates."

With business analytics technology, Edmonton police are able to see data in near-real time. They put crime information directly into the hands … Read more

Facebook, Nielsen to partner on ad stats

Update Tuesday 4:14 a.m. PDT: Facebook and Nielsen have officially announced their multiyear deal.

As part of the Advertising Week festivities in New York, Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg is slated to make a marketing-related announcement on Tuesday morning.

The announcement of a partnership with Nielsen on a product called "BrandLift," which polls Facebook users on ads they see on the social network, was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

There weren't a whole lot of details disclosed, even when the two companies confirmed the news of "a multi-year, strategic alliance" … Read more

Swedish group calls gaming addiction a 'pandemic' threat

A Swedish organization called the Youth Care Foundation claims that computer gaming addiction is reaching pandemic proportions around the world. This is the same group that called World of Warcraft "the cocaine of the computer games world" back in February.

In an interview with Sweden's English paper, The Local, Sven Rollenhagen of the Youth Care Foundation touts his position as one that helps young people in Sweden recognize and manage computer gaming addiction.

Already ahead of the curve by "daring" to view gaming addiction as something distinct from other common problems facing young people, Sweden'… Read more

Report: Virtual currency No. 1 digital goods purchase

New research from video game market research firm VGMarket sponsored by Playspan reveals that gamers are actively making purchases to enhance their gaming experience, with free-to-play games leading the way to monetization. Playspan is a provider of monetization and payment solutions for games and virtual worlds.

Three out of four virtual goods buyers purchased in-game currency in the last 12 months and spent approximately $50 each. This statistic is interesting to me as I am always surprised when users buy in to currency that only works on one site. But, I suppose if it's the only option then you will eventually give in.

Of further interest in the report is the fact that free-to-play games may actually be monetizing better than MMOs (massive multiplayer online games) and social networks.

58 percent made purchases in free-to-play (F2P) games over the last 12 months. 34 percent made purchases in MMOs. 23 percent made purchases in social network games. The average respondent is currently playing three online games and 80 percent report buying digital goods for their own use while 20 percent said they purchase for gifts.

Hitwise: Facebook's 'Connect' pushed it past MySpace

Traffic firm Hitwise says Facebook eventually overcame MySpace in terms of U.S. traffic as a result of the launch of its Facebook Connect universal log-in product, according to a post from analyst Heather Dougherty.

"The number of Web sites participating in Facebook Connect has grown quickly to over 15,000 Web sites (globally) including CNN.com, NBC.com, ABCNews.com, Hulu, WashingtonPost.com, The Huffington Post, and others," Dougherty's post read. "And what is really interesting is to look at the year-over-year growth in the market share of visits to Facebook, because there is a … Read more

That Mac is hot. Too hot.

If you've got burnt thighs from an old MacBook Pro or you notice that your computer is always overheating and crashing from using CPU-intensive apps (like playing PC games in a virtual Windows environment), you might want to check out smcFanControl. This free, GPL-licensed utility has a single purpose: letting you increase the minimum speed of built-in fans, so your Intel computer will run cooler.

smcFanControl lets you monitor the current temperature (in Celsius or Fahrenheit), assign different minimum speeds for each fan using sliders, and even apply different settings when your power source changes (for example, going back … Read more

Easy stats

EZ-Stat for Excel, Data Presentation Products' statistical analysis add-in for Excel, comes bundled with its EZ-Format for Excel package, but it's also available as a stand-alone add-in. EZ-Stat's whole purpose is to save you time and money by automating common statistical tasks and helping you extract more useful information out of the results. It simplifies and automates calculations in many common Excel formulas. It will calculate only selected formulas in selected rows, making precision analysis a breeze. You can compare results in various sort fields, such as Sales and Cost figures by Region or Product Line. It performs … Read more

Cell phones, cooking, coupons drive UK Net growth

New data from The Nielsen Company reflects some interesting new trends related to both the worldwide recession and the somewhat incongruous growth of Web browsing on mobile phones. In a nutshell, users are looking for mobile phone services, food and cooking sites, and coupons, all of which make perfect sense in today's economy.

Web sites related to mobile phones--both handsets and services--showed the highest traffic growth in the UK posting 58 percent growth on a year-to-year basis. According to Nielsen:

Visits to Nokia's site grew by 203 percent, while Vodafone and O2 also posted solid growth (91 percent … Read more

How to use math to choose a wife

Perhaps the subject most fascinating to me at the moment is the gamble that is involved in choosing a life partner.

Perhaps I have been unnecessarily haunted since research revealed that Facebook destroys romantic relationships. Still, it was quite odd that a man whom I have chosen to follow on Twitter for his remarkable erudition in social psychology (oh, alright, his name is Dominic Johnson) passed along a quite extraordinary article from New Scientist, one that has made me ponder more deeply than I usually care to.

While the article begins by discussing the mathematical ways in which you can … Read more