Online Strategy

Day 3 started off with us waiting forever and a day for the shuttle to pick us up from the hotel.  The biggest issue with SXSW is traveling around town.  Austin is a relatively small city that does not have an elaborate rail network, buses or many taxis.  The shuttle service from the hotels to downtown is what most in town for SXSW use.  However, with the large amount of attendees, the traffic congestions and poor management, waiting for the shuttle can creep up to 2 hours.  

Upon finally arriving at the Austin Convention Centre, Joey and I went our separate ways.  I went over to the Hilton to check out Interactive Arts in Japan, which was a showcase hosted by the Creative Director of Dentsu to show interactive artwork done in Japan and how these artists collaborate with agencies to create digital experiences.  

Only in Japan. A Skype doll.

Joey and I both then attended a session on Avoiding Bullshit Personas.  This session was a case study on how lynda.com defined their users and the do's and don'ts of good personas.

The keynote of the day was from visionary Ray Kurzweil and TIME magazine writer Lev Grossman.  In a QA type environoment they had a conversation about what the future lies, and if you have ever watched Terminator, it will happen, computers will be come self aware in our lifetime.

Joey and I are flying up to Austin, Texas today to attend the annual SXSW conference.  What was once a one of the largest music festivals in the world, it has since become an interactive festival that focuses on emerging technologies and a breeding ground for new ideas and creativity. 

So who's involved in this year's SXSW festival. Plenty. 

The focus this year seems to be on mobile, mobile wallet (NFC) and interestingly the future sports audience and over the last few days and nights, I've been feverishly trying to organise my conference schedule.  Who and what I'd like to see, and have come to the realisation that in every hour, I need to be in 4-5 places.  I think it may be a case of just going with the flow and try to get to as many interesting presentations as possible.  

In addition, there has an influx of emails, facebook messages, invites and snail mail from SXSW and the 500+ Aussies that have signed up to attend this festival.  All uber geeky, all uber excited.

There have been quite a few changes to Google Analytics over the last couple of weeks and months so it really does look like Google is kicking Analytics up a notch.  With a bit customising, filtering, advanced segmenting, advanced reporting and some of these new tools you have an Analytics package that is the same, if not better than any other package out there.  

I'm going to take you through some of the new features which have been, or will shortly be released for Google Analytics

Multi-channel funnels

This is a feature which was only previously available in Adwords, but now makes its way across to Google Analytics.  Multi-channel funnels allow you to track the influence each channel has on all of the other channels - in regards to their effect on overall conversion.  This is amazing news for analysts and marketers.  Gone are the days of wondering if social media is bringing in any conversions.  Now, if someone is engaged with you in social media, then signs up for a newsletter, reads a few eDMs and then does a Google search and ultimately converts each of these touch points gets some credit for the conversion.

There are many different models that we use to set the correct attribution model, but needless to say, w have a much better insight into what is really effecting conversions on the website.

One of the biggest shake ups in internet history happened this week with ICANN approving the new top level domain decision.  What this means is that now businesses can apply to create new domain extensions such as .com & .net etc.  The application process costs $185,000 which means that it will only be available to very large organisations.

This is great news for large businesses so they can stand out from the crowd.  Cyber-squatting will be much less of an issue for example;