Christmas Shopping with One Click

When Xmas time comes around, do you dread having to think of gifts to buy for people? Do you fear crowded shopping malls and crazy people trying to hijack your parking spot? Well so do I. And I have an idea for Amazon, who might be able to help me solve this problem.

Amazon should let me create lists of items I think someone will like and then let me send that list to the potential recipient of these items. Let them give them a secret thumbs up or thumbs down for each item.

Based on the user’s responses to my ideas and their shopping history on Amazon, create a list of “things Amazon thinks this person would like” within a price range I specify that is sent back to me (but invisible to the person doing the ratings on the training list).

Also, let me build lists of friends that are saved on Amazon, and create an “I’m feeling lucky this Xmas” button that with one push will automatically pick an item off the “things we think this person will like list” for all my friends, gift wrap it, and ship it to that person.

Xmas shopping woes solved.

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Clicks by Provider…A Theme Song For Web Analytics

by John Bixby on September 12, 2011

After spending a day at work in Excel spreadsheets and churning out some analyses, I found myself starting to go a little batty. In an attempt to take a break and change up the pace for a bit, I was inspired to write a web analytics theme song. So, with a few slight edits to apply to a general audience, I present to you “Clicks by Provider”.

(to the tune of Eye of the Tiger):

Bootin’ up, back on the Splunk
Typing queries, grabbin’ data
Got my shit, now I’m back in Excel
Just a man and his will to analyze

So many times, it happens too slow
You change your passion for data
Don’t lose your grip on dreams of processing fast
You must fight just to keep them alive

Chorus:
It’s the clicks by provider, says the data ninja
Risin’ up to the challenge of web insights
And the last saved query runs alone overnight
To report on website clicks…by provider

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Social Media Tools For Professionals & Networking

May 7, 2011

Twitter – Signal to noise ratio is low, which is why following everyone who chooses to follow you doesn’t work. I use Twitter for news and commentary from thought leaders in my industry. I try to keep my follow list to around 100-150 max otherwise it’s usefulness fades. Tip: don’t follow people who just retweet [...]

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iPhone problems

March 11, 2011

Been having a lot of iPhone problems lately. First I start to lose internet connectivity all the time and experience GPS location update lags, so I reboot it right? Bad idea, becomes it comes back on with all my applications in disarray from their previously neatly organized state. I call Apple for tech support…oops we [...]

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Nested tags in Gmail

November 29, 2010

For the longest time, one of my biggest frustrations with Gmail and its tagging system was that I use a ton of tags and my list of 30+ tags was starting to get out of control. I liked folder systems in programs like Outlook because I could create sub-folders and wished Gmail could do this [...]

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Poll: Creative Design or User Experience Fail?

September 8, 2010

Curious to get people’s thoughts on this one. Vote below!

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Getting started with SEO? Here are some tips…

July 10, 2010

New to the world of SEO? Scratching your head as to where you can begin learning more? Read on! There are a lot of interesting online tools out there for SEO. SEOMoz has some free site assessment tools, and the Pro toolset is actually very handy for assessing how your site fares against the competition. [...]

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Free Handy SEO tool – Brand / Non-Brand Ratio Calculator

January 26, 2010

A very valuable metric in determining the performance of your SEO efforts is the brand / non-brand ratio. This is a measure of brand-related keywords to non-brand related keywords that helps to indicate how well your site is drawing traffic that wasn’t specifically looking for your product or brand. It’s a useful measure, but also [...]

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POLL: Do you think Google is developing its own Google-branded Android phone?

November 19, 2009

Lots of signs point to yes on this one, including this post from TechCrunch and Google’s recent acquisition of Gizmo5, a maker of internet-based calling software for mobile phones and computers. I’d like to know what other people out there think. Vote in my poll below and I’ll be posting a follow-up in a couple [...]

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Like Bad Religion Said, “Quality or Quantity, That’s The Choice You Have To Make”

August 24, 2009

Many years ago, back when MySpace was the king of social networks and Facebook was just starting to make some noise, many people on MySpace would go around adding anyone and everyone as friends on their accounts so that they could brag about having “1,000 friends”.  Somehow this was supposed to make you cool, despite [...]

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