AI comes to GA: New Google Analytics Features Announced, now with Analytics Intelligence (so sweet!)
Google has made significant refinements to the popular Google Analytics user interface. The biggest news among the enhancements is AI: Analytics Intelligence. According to Google, AI is an algorithmic driven Intelligence engine that “will provide automatic alerts of significant changes in the data patterns of your site metrics and dimensions over daily, weekly and monthly periods.”
This means alerts can help marketers and strategists know when a target metric has changed significantly, like a sudden increase in bounce rate or drop in unique visitors.
In Zimana speak, AI means sweet! 
Other new features include:
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New goal types allow you to set thresholds for Time on Site and Pages per Visit. The allows more grannularlity — say percentage of
Advanced Table Filtering allows user to filter the rows in a table based on different metric conditions such as filtering thousands of keywords to identify just the keywords with a bounce rate less than 30% and that referred at least 25 visits.
Unique Visitors can be selected in Custom Reports as a metric against any dimensions in Google Analytics. This allows marketers to see how many actual visitors (unique cookies) make up any user-defined segment.
You can read about the Analytics Intelligence and all the new Google Analytics features here at the Google Analytics blog. Share your hopes for the new AI feature here on Zimanablog!
Now we know who is responsible for Excel!
Every day there’s a new invitation to a network here in NYC. Some group are “out of the wrapper, still have styrofoam peanuts in the nooks and crannies” new, others have been laboring online for years. Few have hit the sweet spot combination like The New York Tech Meet Up. Started only a few years ago, the numbers of registrants increases every year. As of June, the Meet Up had over 10,000 members. Held in the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT — gotta love it!) Auditorium, attendees listen to speakers from every aspect of application development.
One of the most interesting is the presentation by Dan Bricklin, founder of the first spreadsheet, VisiCalc. Now a spreadsheet does not sound sexy, but think about how much can not be achieved without a cell to hold important information. Zimana’s business, along with many other analytics, business firms, consultancies and organizations, rely on the ol’ spreadsheet.
But Dan did not bore the audience with just column-and-row talk. His just released book Bricklin On Technology covers the early days of his start up and serves as a window into the early days of the computer industry. Bricklin spoke about entrepreneurship, how many people are looking for the pot of gold, but should just try to run a solid business. Says Bricklin, “You’ll end up in an nice home, just focus on what you love to do.” I personally like that statement!
You can find Bricklin’s site, including his new book, here.
Microsoft offers free software development incubator for entreprenuers
One thing I have learned since being in NYC is that despite an image of high living costs, free is everywhere if one looks carefully. Microsoft has made free an easier search, at least for software developers. Microsoft announced the BizSpark program, a business incubator where entrepreneurs can develop software or software-as-a-service (SaaS) using Microsoft servers and resources like Azure and Visual Studio. The 3 year program is a free to start ups, with a minor exit fee upon completion. During program membership, start ups will have access to Microsoft developers and associated partners, adding visibility to the start up and excellent advisory aid. Microsoft started the BizSpark program as a means for start ups to create software while reducing the initial development costs.
At a Microsoft Gallery, a short term loft display as part of NYC’s Internet Week, Brian Johnson, Start Up Evangelist at Microsoft, explained the conditions of program. Microsoft is offering the program for small businesses that has less than $1 millions in revenue, that has been in operation for 3 years or less as a privately held company, and that offers software as its core product offering.
As a small business I really appreciate the effort from Microsoft. They have made some really interesting efforts into small business support that is not heralded in the media often. Zimana, my business for example, uses Office Live for hosting our website (another free offering that small businesses should check out for initial hands-off business needs like a website and document storage)
For more information check out this BizSpark site. Also, learn more about Microsoft’s other start up services at the Start Up Zone.