WordPress launches WordPress.tv

OK…You had to wonder when they weregoing to compile all of the videos out there in the world of WordPress and put them into a single site that provides users some quick ways to access video tutorials and many other informative videos that help them develop their sites.

And on January 17th, they did. WordPress.tv is now up and running!

What do I think about it? I think it is a great start. I can see it getting much better as time goes on. The videos are pretty good (even though some are clearly designed for earlier versions of WP) More importantly, I see it as a great place to market videos on how to use your widgets, build your own authority inside the wordpress community, and to pick up development ideas.

One thing to be careful of…some of the videos are designed for WordPress.com vs a self hosted platform… they try to delineate between the two, but pay attention or you will waste time learning about how to do things on a platform that you are not on…

Final thought– Now that the WordPress folks are in the game…I have a feeling there will be a lot more video blogging going on. I think that is a good thing over the long haul.

StatPress Reloaded Plugin … It rocks.

One of the things that my buddy Dave does is to regularly bring out cool new plugins that he finds along the way so that others can benefit. I think I may have found one, Dave (et al) and would be interested in everyone’s thoughts.

I rarely get excited about analytics. (Can I get an “Amen”!) They are a chore. A necessary evil to understand what is going on with a site and to track search marketing progress. I don’t dislike analytics, I find them fascinating…in a masochistic sort of way…

But I am a coach.

I KNOW that even when you set up a Google Analytics program FOR a customer, they will seldom go in there, It is out of their way to login to GA and to track stuff. So what’s a poor boy to do? (First off, I need to tip my hat to Scott Hack for the nice find…and thanks for the heads up)

StatPress Reloaded Plugin for WordPress

This little guy does two things that are missing elements with Google analytics. First and foremost, the stats are right there in the WP back end…so if a customer is writing a post, they can (with ONE click, see the stats.) Love that. It removes excuses for people NOT checking who’s visiting them by making it drop dead simple.

This is crucial in coaching. Make the right stuff easy and the wrong stuff (read: not checking) hard.  Simply put, that alone is a winner for me. This simplicity helps as well with other group blogs in showing the stats to other members of the group. (read: “Look it up yourself. It’s right THERE!” (grin). 10 minutes of my life returned to me!

OK, now to the other reason that I like it. It doesn’t share the information with ANYONE but me. It stores it in a database that I can easily export to a spreadsheet if there is a need, but as much as I like Google, I am just not a big fan of putting my analytics data in the public domain. Even with people I would normally trust.

I did try it out on several versions of WordPress (I am still using 2.6.x on some of my various blogs-for a number of reasons), it worked well on all of them. I did not test StatPress at Wordpress 2.5 or below. Let’s face it, If you are there, you need to upgrade. Seriously.

Since it appears that statpress (according to the wordpress link above) is now being supported again, what I’d like to do is hear your opinions of it, what you think should be added (different analytics to measure, etc.

Thoughts?

Eric

Twitter (for SEM folks), viral marketing, and success…

One of the guys I admire as much as anyone in Search Marketing is Joost de Valk. I enjoy reading his posts on search as well as the plugins that he designs for WordPress. Coincidentally, I posted on the bloodhound blog about some success I had with Twitter.

While I understand (and agree that there is a HUGE difference between twitter for Business to Business (SEO/SEM) vs Business to consumer (real estate sales) and that it may indeed be a waste of time for REALTORS, it also is gaining enough widespread usage to be an effective viral tool in some industries.

Here is Joost’s take on something that happened to him.  I am starting to observe these kinds of results (when twitter is CORRECTLY deployed in a time savvy way-BIG CAVEAT) where Twitter can generate some solid traffic and it can in fact become viral. We are seeing more and more of it happen everyday.

Nice work, Joost!

Happy Monday!