Ben Shoemate's Notebook

I now have in my possession a pocket-sized computer which, when I speak a question to it (“Who is the author of Kraken?” “Who was the fourteenth president of the Unites States?” “What is the name of John Scalzi’s cat?”) provides me an answer in just a few seconds. If I take a picture of something, the same pocket computer will analyze the photo and tell me what I’m looking at. Oh, and it makes phone calls, too. Among other things.

None of that is the cool part. The cool part is, when I speak a question to my pocket computer and it gives me a bad answer, I get annoyed. Because here in the future, when I talk to my pocket computer, I expect it to get the answer right the first time.

I think I’ve said before that one of the neat things about getting older is that you really do become aware just how much things change. To be more specific about it, as you get older, at some point you cross an arbitrary line and are aware that you are now living in the future. I’m not precisely sure when it was I crossed my own arbitrary Future Line, but I’ll tell you what, I’m well past it now.

That is all. Carry on.

Original title and link for this post: Life is unfair!

I saw this on Twitter yesterday:

About 200,000 academic journals are published in English. The average number of readers per article is 5.

I don’t know where those numbers came from, but five readers per article sounds about right.

When I was a grad student, I felt like a fraud for writing papers that I wouldn’t want to read. Only later did I realize this is the norm.You’re forced to publish frequently. You can’t wait until you think you have something worthwhile to say.

If the average academic article has five readers, most would have fewer. Since some articles have hundreds of readers, there would have to be even more with practically no readers to balance out the average.

Readership may follow something like a power law distribution. It could be that the vast majority of articles have one or two readers even though some papers have thousands of readers.

Related posts:

Wendell Berry on publish-or-perish
Nearly everyone is above average
Networks and power laws

What is a Funnel?

Your goal funnel is the set of required pages leading up to your final goal, such as a purchase. You may be familiar with the Funnel Visualization report in Google Analytics (GA). It shows you how many visitors go to each step and how many leave the funnel at that step. You can spot trouble points with your funnel and take steps to correct the issue. Here’s what the report looks like:

The Problem:

While you can segment goal metrics such as goal completions, starts and values in GA, you can’t segment the Funnel Visualization report. You can’t see how different types of visitors may leave the funnel at different steps. For example, you may just want to see where new visitors abandon your goal funnel, compared to returning visitors. When you look up at Advanced Segments in the top right of the Funnel Visualization report, here’s what you see:

The Horizontal, Segmentable Funnel

I want to show you a method that will allow you to see your goal conversion funnels in any report, segmented however you want. I’m going to name it the “Horizontal Funnel” since we’ll be viewing it left to right, instead of top to bottom.

Let’s start with what you’ll get, using this method.

The traditional GA Goal Funnel report shows

1. Number of visits to each step in the funnel
2. The percentage of visits that continued to the next step
3. Where exiting visits went.

With the Horizontal Funnel method you’ll see

1. Number of visits to each step in the funnel.
2. The percentage of visits that did not continue to the next step

You don’t get to see where exiting visitors went. . .but you WILL be able to:

1. Apply Advanced Segments
2. See the funnel for multiple segments in the same report

Let’s look at an example of what a traditional e-commerce funnel that looks like:

Shopping Cart –> Address Info –> Payment Info –> Review Order –> Thank You

In the image below, the values outlined in blue are the visits to each step, and the values outlined in orange are the exit rate between steps.

It’s like a regular funnel, just flipped on it’s side, using goals, first steps in funnels, and custom reports – more detail below. As you can see, this is in a keyword report. So, the funnel can be seen in-line in the report, for whatever segments you want; in this case for individual keyword phrases. And you can apply Advanced Segments or Secondary Dimensions to the report.

That’s the “what”. Now for the “how”.

1. Create the Goals

For each step in the funnel, we create a separate goal in GA. This provides the values in blue: how many visits touched each step. Now we want to be able to get the values in orange, the exit rate between steps. In each of the goals following the first step in the conversion process, we create a funnel. Each funnel contains a single step which is the Goal URL for the preceding goal. That’s the key. The preceding goal becomes the Funnel Step 1 URL for the next goal.

2. Create the custom report

Now that the goals are set up we can create the custom report we need to view the data. To set up the report we are going to use two different metrics, Goal Completions and Abandonment Rate.

The Goal Completion metric is the number of visits in which a particular Goal URL was visited at least once.

The Abandonment Rate metric is the percentage of visits that started the funnel (saw Step 1), but did not complete the goal.

In our Goal #17, we made the Funnel Step 1 = Goal #16 Completion. So, Goal #17 Abandonment Rate = percentage of visits that saw Goal#16 but did not complete Goal #17 = Exit Rate between the 2 goals. In this example the first step in the funnel is in Goal Slot #16, so Goal 16 Completions goes first. The second step was in Goal Slot #17, so we place Goal 17 Abandonment Ratenext, followed by Goal 17 Completions.

Then Goal 18 Abandonment Rate, followed by Goal 18 Completions.

And so on.

After you have all the goals in place in the Metrics section of the report, it’s time to move on to the Dimensions. In this case, we chose to dimension by Keyword. But you may wish to see your goal funnel report by City, State, Browser, Landing Page, or whatever is most appropriate for your situation.

That’s it. Happy Funnel Segmentation.

Small Update:

As Ophir Prusak helpfully pointed out in the comments section, it would be a good idea to note that the values you get using this method may be a little different from what the Funnel Visualization report shows.

One of the reasons for this is that the Funnel Visualization report makes the assumption that If a visit includes Step 3, for example, then it MUST include Step 2 and Step 1.

So if an actual visit sees Step 3, But DOESN’T see Step 2 or Step 1 — what does GA do?  It adds a count to Step 1 and Step 2 ANYWAY.

This Horizontal Funnel method does not do this.  So if you have a funnel with entrances into the middle of the funnel, numbers may be different.

There are probably other good reasons why they could be different as well, but that is the most obvious one and definately needed to be pointed out.

Thanks Ophir!

For more about tricksy funnel issues in GA try checking out this post on our blog:

http://www.lunametrics.com/blog/2008/06/25/funnel-problems-google-analytics/

-John

Segment your Goal Funnel in Google Analytics is a post from: Google Analytics, Search Engine Optimization and PPC blog

Related posts:

1. Funnel Problems in Google Analytics
2. Odd Funnel Steps in Google Analytics Goals
3. Advanced Segments vs. Profiles & Filters

From Letters of Note:

Until very recently I’d heard numerous tales of Steve Martin’s humorous responses to fan mail, but frustratingly had never seen such a letter; thankfully that situation was remedied the other week when I chanced upon the following note, apparently sent by Martin in the early-80s, post-Jerk (ahem), when he was at the top of his game. Written on his production company’s letterhead to a fan named Jerry, this personalised form letter – in particular the post-script – is further confirmation that almost everything Steve Martin produced during that era was incredibly funny.

Last week the leftists on the Los Angeles City Council voted to boycott Arizona. Today, a representative from the Arizona Corporation Commission responded. Gary Pierce, one of the commissioners chosen in state-wide elections to the utility regulation panel, noted that Los Angeles gets about 25% of its power from Arizona producers.  He sent a letter to Mayor Villaraigosa.

Via HotAir:

Dear Mayor Villaraigosa,

I was dismayed to learn that the Los Angeles City Council voted to boycott Arizona and Arizona-based companies — a vote you strongly supported — to show opposition to SB 1070 (Support our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act).

You explained your support of the boycott as follows: “While we recognize that as neighbors, we share resources and ties with the State of Arizona that may be difficult to sever, our goal is not to hurt the local economy of Los Angeles, but to impact the economy of Arizona.  Our intent is to use our dollars — or the withholding of our dollars — to send a message.” (emphasis added)

I received your message; please receive mine.  As a state-wide elected member of the Arizona Corporation Commission overseeing Arizona’s electric and water utilities, I too am keenly aware of the “resources and ties” we share with the City of Los Angeles. In fact, approximately twenty-five percent of the electricity consumed in Los Angeles is generated by power plants in Arizona.

If an economic boycott is truly what you desire, I will be happy to encourage Arizona utilities to renegotiate your power agreements so Los Angeles no longer receives any power from Arizona-based generation. I am confident that Arizona’s utilities would be happy to take those electrons off your hands. If, however, you find that the City Council lacks the strength of its convictions to turn off the lights in Los Angeles and boycott Arizona power, please reconsider the wisdom of attempting to harm Arizona’s economy.

People of goodwill can disagree over the merits of SB 1070. A state-wide economic boycott of Arizona is not a message sent in goodwill.

Sincerely,

Commissioner Gary Pierce

Previously:
Los Angeles to Boycott Arizona… Maybe It’s Time for Arizona to Cut Off Their Lights?

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If you're like me you're more than a little sick of GM's Ed Whitacre tv ad. So are more than a few U.S. Senators and lawmakers. From Fox:

General Motors has been running ads on all the major networks claiming the company repaid its $6.7 billion U.S. government loan "with interest five years ahead of the original schedule." General Motors Company CEO Ed Whitacre can be seen in the ad walking through an auto plant as he touts the company's progress.

But lawmakers, and even the inspector general for the bailout fund GM borrowed from, point out that General Motors only repaid the bailout money by dipping into a separate pot of bailout money. They say the company did not actually use its own earnings to make the early payment and are questioning why executives are making such a big deal out of it.

The workings of the bailout and what is actually being repaid and how are complex but simplified basically GM is repaying their "loan" with other money from the government, not from any actual earnings.

The $6.7 billion is also just a fraction of the $52 billion General Motors received in government aid. Grassley said lawmakers are being told government losses on GM are expected to exceed $30 billion.

The TARP inspector general, Neil Barofsky, bluntly told the Senate Finance Committee during a hearing last week that the repayment "is just other TARP money" and lawmakers should not "exaggerate" the feat.

"It sounds like they're kind of like taking money out of one pocket and putting it in the other to do that," Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., said at the hearing.

And of GM’s Vice Chairman Stephen Girsky:

General Motors admits that the company is repaying the loan with other government money, but says a year ago "nobody thought we'd be able to pay this back."

Gee, that's really reassuring.

Here's Ed Whitacre's complete ad, somewhat ironically titled "Trust":

The shelves in my office are overflowing with so many books that I’ve started hiding them other places around the house (the bathroom closest now has a complete set of the Harvard Classics).

My wife can’t understand why I need to keep buying even more books (and she doesn’t even know about the bathroom library yet) but now I have an excuse to justify my bibliophilism: The more books I have the better our kid will do in school.

After examining statistics from 27 nations, a group of researchers found the presence of book-lined shelves in the home — and the intellectual environment those volumes reflect — gives children an enormous advantage in school.

“Home library size has a very substantial effect on educational attainment, even adjusting for parents’ education, father’s occupational status and other family background characteristics,” reports the study, recently published in the journal Research in Social Stratification and Mobility. “Growing up in a home with 500 books would propel a child 3.2 years further in education, on average, than would growing up in a similar home with few or no books.

“This is a large effect, both absolutely and in comparison with other influences on education,” adds the research team, led by University of Nevada sociologist M.D.R. Evans. “A child from a family rich in books is 19 percentage points more likely to complete university than a comparable child growing up without a home library.”

This effect holds true regardless of a nation’s wealth, culture or political system, but its intensity varies from country to country. In China, a child whose parents own 500 books will average 6.6 more years of education than a comparable child from a bookless home. In the U.S., the figure is 2.4 years — which is still highly significant when you consider it’s the difference between two years of college and a full four-year degree.

By the way, if you talk to my wife, please don’t mention that whole “correlation doesn’t equal causation” thing to her.

(Via: Neatorama)

The shelves in my office are overflowing with so many books that I’ve started hiding them other places around the house (the bathroom closest now has a complete set of the Harvard Classics).

My wife can’t understand why I need to keep buying even more books (and she doesn’t even know about the bathroom library yet) but now I have an excuse to justify my bibliophilism: The more books I have the better our kid will do in school.

After examining statistics from 27 nations, a group of researchers found the presence of book-lined shelves in the home — and the intellectual environment those volumes reflect — gives children an enormous advantage in school.

“Home library size has a very substantial effect on educational attainment, even adjusting for parents’ education, father’s occupational status and other family background characteristics,” reports the study, recently published in the journal Research in Social Stratification and Mobility. “Growing up in a home with 500 books would propel a child 3.2 years further in education, on average, than would growing up in a similar home with few or no books.

“This is a large effect, both absolutely and in comparison with other influences on education,” adds the research team, led by University of Nevada sociologist M.D.R. Evans. “A child from a family rich in books is 19 percentage points more likely to complete university than a comparable child growing up without a home library.”

This effect holds true regardless of a nation’s wealth, culture or political system, but its intensity varies from country to country. In China, a child whose parents own 500 books will average 6.6 more years of education than a comparable child from a bookless home. In the U.S., the figure is 2.4 years — which is still highly significant when you consider it’s the difference between two years of college and a full four-year degree.

By the way, if you talk to my wife, please don’t mention that whole “correlation doesn’t equal causation” thing to her.

(Via: Neatorama)

This may come as a surprise to some, but Bob Marley’s hit “Jamming” actually has nothing to do with fax machines.