Random thoughts and observations
Google Analytics is a great way to compile and compare statistics for website visits. Here’s a summary of my stats for 2011:
Unique visitors: 97,134 (+4.7%)
Page views: 154,385 (+6.6%)
Average time on site: 47 seconds (-14.5%)
New visits: 90.02% (+1.3%)
I’ve been taking a closer look at Google Analytics recently because it now offers real-time visitor information. Tonight I compared the stats for November this year with the same month last year, and discovered the numbers are falling slightly. In November 2010 there were 7521 unique visitors; this year the total was 7371. The browser stats were interesting. Internet Explorer users have fallen from 55 percent to 53 percent; Firefox has fallen from 21 to 18 percent and Chrome has risen from 11 to 16 percent and Safari was steady on 11 percent.
The Bureau of Meteorology provides an excellent service, but in the online space has been rather dowdy in its presentation. The plain-text Courier font has been the official style for many years now. Frankly, it looks dull and has possibly driven many web users to commercial sites that present the same data more attractively. The bureau is now moving with the times and is about to unveil a new look and more detail with its South Australian forecasts.
I’ve received several web comments, an email and two phone calls that don’t make any sense. The voicemail messages were from a financial adviser wanting unit prices for a forestry plantation. I blogged once about failed managed investment schemes, but I don’t own any plantations and wouldn’t have a clue about unit prices. The web [...]
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Political bile takes centre stage
I don’t like the hatred that’s crept into modern politics. I’m not so naive to think that hatred hasn’t always existed, not just between parties, but within them and outside them. However, there is too much anger in politics today, as the above sign from Tony Abbott’s rally this week illustrates. Can’t people criticise Julia Gillard and her policies without the vitriol? I know John Howard faced similar attacks, but I do think it’s a relatively recent phenomenon. I attribute this to the Americanisation of Australian politics and the influence of the internet.