Lucas Ng's blog

Player wages show high correlation with club position…...

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 12:52:27 +1100

Player wages show high correlation with club position… C.R.E.A.M

Competitive inequality due to old money (Serie A/Liga BBVA) and new money (Chelsea).

source: abehnisch, 2008-09 uefa wages

How To Remove URL, subdomain or websites from Google index

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 16:12:05 +1100

Quick tumblr post on deleting/removing content from Google.

The Bible on deleting content from Google exists at canig.com: http://www.canig.com/menu/deletingpages/.

You can also try directly tweeting Squibble’s twitter account: https://twitter.com/#!/canig_squibble

Further resources on removing URLs:

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com.au/2011/05/easier-url-removals-for-site-owners.html

Menu Engineering: Food Analytics 101

Tue, 23 Aug 2011 14:52:13 +1000

Menu Engineering: Food Analytics 101:

In its truest sense, the term menu engineering refers to the specific restaurant menu analysis methodology developed by Michael L. Kasavana, Ph.D and Donald J. Smith at the Michigan State University School of Hospitality Business in 1982.

Where amazing happens. When product managers order pizza for the...

Fri, 10 Jun 2011 11:35:38 +1000

Where amazing happens.

When product managers order pizza for the work crew.

Oh Yahoo :(

Mon, 02 May 2011 12:07:00 +1000

Oh Yahoo :(

Conversion Rate Optimization - Screen Resolution Size

Thu, 10 Mar 2011 15:14:00 +1100

Simple optimization tip that _will_ have huge effect on your bottom line.

Optimize your site for your most popular screen resolution segment. If most of your customers are using 1024 x 768, then what does this chart - taken from one of most popular websites - tell you?

Why are the 1024x768 users not transacting as much as the second and third most popular screen resolutions, 1280x768 and 1280x800?

Answer that question for the above chart and you will have increased conversion by 33% for your most popular user segment. That equals = a huge chunk of happier users and a much happier bank account.

edit: Jon Mendez also talked about this way back in 2007: http://www.optimizeandprophesize.com/jonathan_mendezs_blog/2007/09/landing-page-re.html

The difference between utilizing network assets - social media vs. traditional news media

Tue, 08 Mar 2011 09:55:05 +1100

How two networks utilize their network assets:

Traditional News Media Network:

Cross promotional banner ads

Cross promotional ‘recommended’ articles/stories

Cross promotion of member databases/email lists (aka solicited spam)

Cross linking for SEO benefit

Zynga:

Creates a rewards/loyalty program meta game called RewardVille, making their existing properties even stickier and keeping players on Zynga ecosystem for even longer.

Which one is more relevant for users?

KPCB Top 10 Mobile Trends - A must read

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 09:29:32 +1100

KPCB Top 10 Mobile Trends

Marco.org: Most common words unique to 1-star and 5-star App Store reviews

Wed, 22 Sep 2010 14:00:00 +1000

Marco.org: Most common words unique to 1-star and 5-star App Store reviews:

marco:

★★★★★:
awesome, worth, thanks, amazing, simple, perfect, price, everything, ever, must, ipod, before, found, store, never, recommend, done, take, always, touch

★☆☆☆☆:
waste, money, crashes, tried, useless, nothing, paid, open, deleted, downloaded, didn’t, says, stupid, anything, actually, account, bought, apple, already

Ryan Freitas: 35 Lessons in 35 Years

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:32:00 +1000

Ryan Freitas: 35 Lessons in 35 Years:

My father always told me that the day we stop learning is the day we die. I wrote this as a sort of preparation for my 35th birthday last week. Some of these are poignant, others are simply trite; I attribute the latter to my growing sense of sentimentality as I age. That, and I need an editor.

…

Flurry: iPhone Games Are A $500 Million Industry In The U.S. And Taking Share

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 12:06:00 +1100

Flurry: iPhone Games Are A $500 Million Industry In The U.S. And Taking Share:

Rhea Drysdale - Champion of the SEO industry

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 11:03:00 +1100

Calling out Aussie SEOs to donate to Rhea Drysdale (aka She-Ra) of Outspoken Media.

Why?

Because the industry owes her for opposing some random dude named Jason Gambert (henceforth Skeletor) who filed an application to trademark the term “SEO”.

Quoting Rhea:

On April 24, 2008 I filed my notice of opposition to Jason Gambert’s “SEO” trademark application. On March 11, 2010, I won.

It took two years, $17,004.33 and an untold amount of frustration and self-doubt to get through this. But, what does it all mean? Why did I commit to this? What would have happened had Gambert succeeded in registering the trademark?

Read the full story.

Read it? Good. Now please join the rest of the SEO community in thanking Rhea by donating $US100 to help cover her legal fees via paypal. Enter rhea_drysdale [at] yahoo [dot] com as the email address.

I’ve donated to what amounts to $113.58 AUD. For us Aussie SEOs, there should be no excuse with our dollar sitting at $US 0.91 ;)

Don’t be a douche.

Like Skeletor.

Update: Rhea follows up with a thank you and giant interweb wide group hug

More SEO trademark coverage:

Australian Mobile Page Views grew 85% over last 6 months

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 11:11:00 +1100

Some mobile statistics taken from across the Fairfax network, representing approximately 8 million monthly unique Australian visitors across dozens of sites in multiple verticals.

In the last 6 months from August 2009 to Jan 2010, mobile page views increased by 85%

Apple (iPhone and iTouch) mobile page views increased by 93%

Apple increased their share of mobile page views from 78% to 82%

These five smartphone manufacturers represented 98% of all mobile page views

NYTimes: The Paid vs. Free Content Debate #media2010

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 10:34:00 +1100

Pulled from NYTimes CTO Marc Fron’s slidedeck from his #media2010 presentation.

Four slides on the paid vs. free content debate that occurred at NYTimes.

1. Free vs. Paid: The Tradeoffs

2. Three Models for Online Paid Content that NYTimes considered:

3. Finding a Balance: Dual revenue stream model would be ideal

4. Details of the NYTimes Paid Model

How Many Aussies Use Twitter?

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 14:59:00 +1000

How many Aussies tweet?

The answer as always, is it depends on who you ask.

Comscore: 800,000 Aussies visited Twitter.com in July 2009

Nielsen: 1,400,000 Aussies visited Twitter.com in July 2009

What?

Well, different measurement systems = different methodologies = different numbers.

One can conclude though, that there are a LOT of Aussies visiting Twitter.com, certainly over half a million, which is amazing growth over the past few months.

Comscore released their July-09 report on Australian social media statistics and pegged the number of visitors to Twitter.com at 800,000, an impressive 6122% increase from 13,000 a year ago. According to comScore World Metrix, 6.5% of Australia’s Internet Audience visits Twitter.com

Meanwhile, Nielsen Netview reported 1,400,000 Australians visited Twitter.com in July 2009 (up from 60,000 in Jun-08), representing 8.3% of the total Australian Internet Audience.

Source: Nielsen Netview, July 2009

Interestingly, the Netview figures also add fuel to the fire that Teenagers Don’t Tweet:

92.5% of Australian Twitter users are over the age of 18
Within the age bracket for 12-17 year olds, the unique audience composition index is only 62*
Yet it is 122 for 18-24 year olds
And 167 for 25-34 year olds

(A value over 100 represents a higher concentration of unique visitors from that age group as compared to the age group’s concentration across the entire web)

Is it true that teens in Australia use SMS/text to share information rather than social media websites?

*Nielsen Netview reports that their sample size for 12-17 year olds does not meet their minimum standards so the composition index figure may be skewed.

Are Kyle and Jackie O Faking Their Twitter Followers?

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:02:00 +1000

Are Sydney radio personalities Kyle and Jackie O from 2dayfm faking twitter followers to their account KyleandJackieO after accumulating more than 30,000 users in 18 hours? Are they, in fact, Twitter Wankers?

The answer is no.

Background to the story via this Courier Mail article:

“SYDNEY radio’s Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O have been branded “Twitter wankers” by a man who makes his living selling Twitter followers to would-be marketers. {my spidey senses are tingling!}

Jackie O has slammed the claims as “absolute bullshit” but uSocial.net chief Leon Hill says the pair artificially inflated their following on the social networking site, which soared by more than 30,000 in 18 hours.”

“Almost none have photos, little to no updates and the ones that were updating were doing so with either their name, or an illegible grouping of letters.” Hill continued.

This calling out generated significant press (for Hill) and made its way onto mainstream news websites like the Courier Mail and The Age.

Um, however, what Mr Hill has missed is Kyle and Jackie O’s twitter account is now a Twitter suggested user. That’s right, Twitter recommends @KyleandJackieO to all new Twitter users. These new Twitter users are the same frightened newbies most likely to have no idea who to follow and to not have uploaded a photo and to not have posted a single update.

Also, just because some users update with “an illegible grouping of letters or their name” does not imply all or even most of their followers are fake.

That’s like saying the lack of pirates is causing global warming… Correlation != Causality:

What’s more surprising to me is that a social media ‘expert’ isn’t aware that similar cases have already been in the news. As recently as Feb 2009, popular UK news site Guardian.co.uk was accused of similar fakery-shenanigans that were debunked by Twitter co-founder Evan Williams:

“The reason we created this feature is because lots of people sign up to Twitter but aren’t following anyone, so we’re trying to help get them started,”

To sum it up, Kyle and Jackie O’s massive boost in recent followers is legit.

In fact, you could almost say Twitter is endorsing them by recommending them to new users - that’s a far cry from ‘faking’ it.

edit: link to twitterholic stats which shows KyleandJackieO extraordinary growth since being given Suggested User status http://twitterholic.com/kyleandjackieo/

edit 2: updated grammar for clarity.

"Don’t Save Money To Escape Work. Save Money So You Can Work On What You Love."

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 17:36:00 +1000

“Don’t Save Money To Escape Work.
Save Money So You Can Work On What You Love.”

- Old vs. New world perspective on $aving.

Old School Cartoon Theme Battle: digdeep vs. lucasng

Fri, 22 May 2009 17:38:09 +1000

Friday afternoon, rainy day, with beers in hand towards the end of the working week, @digdeep and I decided to engage in an old school cartoon theme battle. On Twitter.

This is how the rounds went:

digdeep 1st, lucasng 2nd

SuperTed vs. Denver the Last Dinosaur
Ulysses 31 vs. >Mysterious Cities of Gold
Teknoman vs. Roger Ramjet
Samurai Pizza Cats vs. SpeedRacer
C.O.P.S vs. M.A.S.K
Chip and Dale, Rescue Rangers vs. Defenders of the Earth
Legend of Zelda vs. X-Men
Voltron @lucasng concedes

Of course, others were welcome to join and we got suggestions from @bigboytony He-Man, @joshua_hay Thundercats, @sodsa Pinky and the Brain

Themes were arbitrarily judged by our esteemed Twitter followers on obscurity and theme catchiness.

I conceded on Voltron but of course @digdeep had to rub it in with this gem.

How Many Australian Twitter Users Are There? And What Clients Do They Use?

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 14:04:00 +1000

The TLDR summary:

There are 679,000 Australians on Twitter.com
Twitter.com market share has grown over 1000% since the start of the year
Only 44% of Tweets originate from Twitter.com

Last month, I guessed that there were around 300,000 Aussie Twitter accounts.

I was wrong.

March’s results are in, and Hitwise announced Twitter.com had 1000% growth since January 2009 (market share of daily visits):

Meanwhile, Nielsen Netview reported that 679,000 Australians visited Twitter.com in March 2009.

source: Nielsen Netview, March 2009, Twitter.com unique audience

Now, what do these two reports mean?

Are there 679,000 Australians on Twitter?

The short answer is yes. The long answer, no.

Let me explain.

Methodology of Hitwise and Nielsen

Hitwise reports on the market share of daily visits to Twitter.com, compared to all other websites. It’s not reporting the number of Twitter accounts, or even the number of unique visitors to Twitter.com. This is because Hitwise data is collected from the weblogs of some, but not all Australian ISPs.

Meanwhile, Nielsen’s Netview reports on the ‘unique audience’ to Twitter.com over March. It also uses a survey panel, which is then used to represent all of Australia.

This leads to an important point: these reports only measure visits and users of Twitter.com, disregarding Twitter clients like Tweetdeck or Tweetie.

How Many Twitter Users Use A Twitter Client?

The Jan-09 client stats from tweetstats creator Damon Cortesi showed 56% of tweets do not come via the web interface:

Jan-09 Twitter Client Stats (based on +50 million tweets):

So now it should be a breeze to calculate how many Aussie Twitter users there are right? We know how many Aussies visited Twitter.com and how many tweets are posted outside of the twitter.com interface.

Nope.

What about the people who use more than one Twitter client? For example, if you tweet via twitter.com, tweetdeck and a mobile client, you’d be counted three as three users even though you are using the same username. How do you filter out the duplication?

After pondering this for a while, I came to the conclusion that the most accurate method would be to ask Damon of Tweetstats to calculate from his tweet sample the average number of clients used per user!

I also came to the conclusion that the lazy method is to assume the vast majority of Twitter users _would_ visit the Twitter.com site at least once a month - to update their profile, use search.twitter.com or to vanity check their profile etc.

The best answer is of course, ask @twitter, except they are notoriously secretive on the subject of just how many twitter users there really are. (For example, Twitter IDs are no longer sequentially generated and @biz went on to tell @jkottke:

“However, the way we number Twitter updates has switched back and forth a few times which pretty much screws up the exactness of your analysis.”)

Therefore, if anyone asks you how many Australians are on Twitter, just say 679,000!

2008 Internet Security Trends Report Released By Symantec

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:00:00 +1000

Symantec recently released their free 2008 report on Global Internet Security trends.

It’s bursting with interesting nuggets of Internet security research, heck, it’s practically a gold mine - check out three of the highlights:

1. Did You Know You Can Buy Compromised Credit Cards for $0.06 Each?

Credit card information was the most popular item for sale, comprising 32% of all ‘underground economy’ goods and services? And did you know obtaining said credit card information started from just $US0.06 each (like all good economies, there was a discount for buying in bulk).

2. China - The Most Infected Country, Buenos Aires- The Most Infected City

China had the most bot-infected computers in 2008, accounting for 13 percent of the worldwide total
Buenos Aires was the city with the most bot-infected computers in 2008, accounting for 4 percent of the worldwide total.

China and Brazil have some of the highest software piracy rates in the world. Because pirate software is typically unable to use automated security patches, it is likely many computers in these two countries have not been patched against virulent worms like the Conficker W32.Downadup infection.

Above Chart: Top 10 countries ranked by W32.Downadup infections

Source: Symantec

3. Mozilla Browsers Take Gold in War Against Vulnerabilities

Mozilla browsers had a window of exposure to a sample set of 83 vulnerabilities of less than one day in 2008 before being patched, just in front of Opera (1 day) but well ahead of Chrome (3 days) and Internet Explorer (7 days).

“Of all the browser vendors examined, Mozilla browsers maintained the shortest window of exposure while patching more vulnerabilities than other vendors. This may be indicative of their efforts to marshal the security community to responsibly report vulnerabilities through initiatives such as their Bug Bounty program.

The result of this effort is that more vulnerabilities are announced by the vendor at the time they are fixed, instead of being publicly reported by security researchers independently of the vendor. It is also worth noting that independent browser vendors, such as Opera and the Mozilla Foundation, had a shorter window of exposure in 2008 than the major operating system vendors, such as Apple and Microsoft.”

That’s just 3 highlights from this insightful 110 page report. I highly recommend the PDF download. Of course, Symantec’s ulterior goal is to scare the crap out of you and attract more customers, and damned if this report doesn’t do the job.

Download the PDF here.