High folks… long time no Blog.

Well as you can image things have been crazy.
But I haven’t forgotten all of you out there… pining for more Dougy Goodness.
I dispense said goodness…. now:

The new job is going very well.
I really enjoy the job, the people, and the company over all.
I can’t tell you how great it is to be at a company focused on technology.
I’m finally able to justify spending time learning about all sorts of things I’ve been “meaning” to get educated on.

For instance…
Web Analytics.

It’s terribly interesting stuff.
Now-a-days analyzing your website traffic goes much further than server logs.
Sure any hosting company can provide rudimentary site statistics… and even create fancy graphs based on those logs… but the data is pretty dumb.
It’s just raw data, and it’s not actionable on any significant level.

Websites that REALLY want to make use of web site statistics need to understand visitor behavior, and need to be able to take action on it.

Example:
Say you’ve got a website that sells sporting goods.
You’re going to launch an advertising campaign and put banner ads all over the internet.

At the same time you are going to send out a marketing newsletter to all of your 40,000 opt-in subscribers.

You need to make sure you get every bang for your buck that you can,
Here’s how web analytics can help

You design TWO emails and TWO banner ads.
Then you send each of the emails to 500 people.
You also place each banner ad on a few good sites for a short time.
Your web analytics platform will tell you which of your emails and banner ads generated more revenue.
You can then take the more effective email and send to the rest of your list.
And likewise put the more effective banner ad all over the internet.

Neat huh?

Well wait…there’s more.

Now that you’ve used your web analytics data to create a more productive advertising campaign… you’re going to get some more visitors.

Web analytics can show you how your visitors behaved while at your site. What were they most interested in. Why did the folks who didn’t buy … not buy?

Well by looking at the “conversion funnel” we can see where people dropped out of the buying process.

Did they look at a product? - Yes
Did they add it to the cart? - Yes
Did they click “check out”? - Yes
Did they enter in Billing Info? - Yes
Did they enter in shipping info - NO

Ah… something about the shipping dissuaded them.
NOW THAT’S actionable data.

So you quickly create an email that will be sent to all the folks that dropped out at the shipping stage of the process.

The email uses the web analytics data to generate an offer of FREE SHIPPING on the very product they had in their carts while they were at your site.

“What LUCK” says the giddy consumer! The item they wanted yesterday (but didn’t want pay shipping for) JUST HAPPENS to have a Free Shipping promotion!!

THOSE kinds of emails… targeted, personal, and relevant… they get much increased conversion rates than a “blind” advertisement campaign.

You can make more revenue with an email like that sent to a handful of users than you did with the large scale banner add and email campaign combined!

Really interesting stuff.

Of course there are many web analytics packages out there.
Some bigger and fancier than others.
Some free… some far from it.

So I decided to start using Google Analytics here on DougMeade.com
Google Analytics is free, but surprisingly powerful once you get under the hood.

Of course I’m not selling anything.
So a “conversion” for me isn’t a sale… I decided that a conversion for me is a new registered user.
I’m impressed with the data available already at this early stage.

I haven’t accurately defined the path a user would take through the site in order to register (a conversion) .. so I can’t give you any REAL insight as to where possible members are abandoning the process.

But stay tuned.

Oh and… a big hearty hello to the folks visiting from Bartlett, Tampa, Hattiesburg, Waco, Austin, and Lafayette.

ok there’s BIG news to report… but I’m waiting until I can get some images / video prepared.

In the meantime can someone answer me this?

Recently a US member of congress was raided by the FBI.

Now congress people on both sides of the isle are up in arms.

Democrats and republicans alike are outraged at the blatant disregard for law and privacy.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wisconsin, a loyal White House ally, Titled his hearing on the matter: “Reckless Justice: Did the Saturday Night Raid of Congress Trample the Constitution?”

How dare a US CONGRESSPERSON be subjected to such clearly inappropriate if not illegal actions?

Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty said:

“We believe our actions were lawful and necessary under these very unique circumstances,”

Odd isn’t it that now that a congress person was subjected to shady law enforcement practices due to special and “unique” circumstances that they are outraged about it!?

Meanwhile the numerous examples effecting “normal” people are merely variables in recent poll results.

The NSA wiretapping, the phone records turned over from big telcos… all of that would be OUTRGEOUS and UNACCEPTABLE if it were done to a congerss person.

Democrats - Republicans … they’re all dumbfounded that any branch of the government could be so casual with the spirit and letter of the constitution and use such strong arm tactics.

Apparently they just aren’t paying attention. It’s been happening to everyday Americans all over the place.

Right or Wrong … I don’t feel sorry for them.

How’s it feel congress?

So I read an odd but interesting article recently.

Scientists extract gasoline from cattle dung

As you may have guessed from the title…

It’s about getting gasoline out of poop.

Cow poop.

Some Japanese scientist figured this out.

The numbers in the article are based on Japanese Cattle statistics, so I was left wondering how viable a solution this would be in the US.

Here’s how it breaks down.

First the problem:

How much gasoline do we use every year in the US?

Well…

The United States consumes about 20 million barrels of oil each day.

A barrel of oil (which contains 42 gallons) will yield something like 19 or 20 gallons of gasoline, depending on the refinery.

Therefore, in the United States, something like 400 million gallons of gasoline gets consumed every day.

In a year, therefore, the U.S. consumes about 146 billion gallons of gasoline.

(source: How Stuff Works)

Fair Enough.

Now we know from our Japanese Scientist friends that you can get 0.042 ounces of gasoline from every 3.5 ounces of cow dung.

So the question becomes:

Is there enough cow poop in the US every year to satisfy a significant percentage of our gasoline needs?

Well…

There are roughly 100,000,000 (One Hundred Million) cows in the United States.

According to this article a well-fed dairy cow produces 120 pounds of manure every day.

That’s 40,000 pounds per year per animal.

Which puts the annual cow poop tabulation at an astounding 4,000,000,000,000 (Four TRILLION) pounds.

Wow.

You smell that?

Which converts to 1,814,369,482 (1.8 BILLION) metric tons.

Further we know that there are 35,274 ounces in a metric ton so…

Each year the United States produces 64,000,069,091,189.90 (64 TRILLION) ounces of cow poop.

Which (if we are to believe the Japanese) will yield 435,374,619,667,958 (435 TRILLION) ounces of gasoline.

… which equates to 12,342,649,534.16 (12 BILLION) Metric Tons of gasoline.

… 27,210,884,353,741.50 (27.2 TRILLION) pounds of gasoline.

NOW…

A gallon of gasoline weighs somewhere between 5.8 and 6.5 pounds.

For the purposes of this exercise I used 6 as a nice middle ground.

Which leaves us with…

4,535,147,392,290.25 (4.5 TRILLION) gallons of gasoline per year.

All from cow poop.

If the United States really does consume 146 BILLION gallons of gasoline.

The 4.5 Trillion gallons of gasoline we could get from cow poop is nearly 31 times what we need.

Clearly I think that covers any swag my numbers may have had.

Why the hell are we not doing this?

We’d pretty much END our dependance on foreign oil.

We’d have a USEFUL end for cow poop, which believe it or not is a big problem.

And we’d have enough gasoline left over WE COULD MAKE MONEY.

Talk about a cash cow!!

So it’s day 16 of my getting BACK into Atkins.

I’ve lost 8 pounds.

It’s not working as fast as last time… but the first two weeks haven’t been as “bad” either.

I think both things are due to the fact that I am allowing myself “sugar free” / “zero carb” candies every now and then. The first time through I did not… and I about went insane the first two weeks last time.

That’s not to say that it’s been easy.

Yesterday Jana had some toast with butter…

Not exactly a meal worthy of the food channel.. but I would have killed for a bite.

I want a chocolate chip cookie so bad I’d commit a number of felonies to get one.

BUT I WON’T.

(see previous post about promises to one’s self)

Anyway I can take a little comfort in the fact that this is about the time (if my previous Atkins experience holds true) that the cravings and withdrawal should start to subside. Then I can settle in for three to four solid weeks of loss.

Then it’s just a matter of taking three to four weeks to “balance” my eating habits into a healthy and planned carb intake.

And finally perhaps as many more weeks getting into a more flexible plan.

That’s where I was before the wedding when I felt and looked good compared to today.

At that point I wasn’t counting carbs much… it was more like:

“Choose the lower carb version when available, eat foods as close to unprocessed as possible, and generally be smart about eating”

And I was holding my weight stable.

Then the Honeymoon wrecked it.

Well…no.. I wrecked it. And I happened to be on our Honeymoon at the time.

Perhaps step one in keeping self promises is taking responsibility.

Anyway that’s how exciting my life is… you get to hear me talk about my burning desire for buttered toast.