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  Mar 25 2010 -  Spotting things you'll want to see today.
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This is the March 25 2010 edition of Who's Blogging What, a newsletter that closely monitors 1,100 top web marketing blogs for online professionals involved in social media, search marketing, email, user experience and web analytics. Subscribers are updated with highlights and useful new links every Thursday. If you would like to be kept up to date you may enter your email address in the box at the right.

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Count yourself out?

Google's other opt-out

The real surprising news from Google this week had little to do with China (that little skirmish was heavily discussed in the online blogs back in January). This week's announcement of a user opt-out for Google Analytics left many people wondering if the way that they look at web usage will soon change. Anil Batra offered a quick look at how the opt-out plug-in will work. The downside reaction was led by Marketing Pilgrim, who felt that the move could cripple GA numbers and wondered aloud why web owners could not be trusted with anonymous data if Google was okay with storing personal search histories.

Upon further analysis many bloggers predicted that GA and its 80% market share would not trend rapidly downhill. Forrester's Joe Stanhope offered some practical advice and reason, including the theory that the opt-in users might be better prospects. SEOMoz was one of several voices who pointed out that most users won't install a plug-in and that true privacy freaks could avoid GA through other means. They also added the thought that Google has a backup plan in mind just in case the opt-out craze went viral. The blog Web Analytics Demystified offered the theory that the whole thing was just another instance of Google taking on a large nation state -- Google is now pushing GA into large US government websites and the additional privacy control would be a necessary check off for approval.


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The most useful posts of the week

Social Media
  • 5 Essential Apps for Your Business's Facebook Fan Page [Open Forum]
  • 3 Ways to Drive Corporate Facebook Success [HubSpot]
  • 4 Easy Ways to Engage Your Facebook Fans [Mashable]
  • 10 Secrets of a Winning Facebook Fan Page [Palmer]
  • 10 Essential Social Media Tips for B2B Marketers [Mashable]
  • 5 Simple Ways to Increase the Reach of Your Blog [RemarkaBlogger]
  • 5 Commonly Misunderstood Things on Twitter [TwiTip]
  • Facebook Fan Pages Evolve Into CRM Channel for Big Brands [ClickZ]
  • 5 Things You Need to Know About Location-Based Social Media [Mashable]
  • 10 Steps To Create The Ultimate Facebook Fan Page for Your Brand [Next Web]

Search Marketing
  • 5 Ways to Make Back Links More Powerful [Search Engine Journal]
  • 7 Ways To Improve Page Rank [Buzz Hound]
  • 3 Best Practices of Conversion Rate Optimization [Search Engine Journal]
  • Specialized Sitemaps: Video Sitemaps [Search Marketing Sage]

User Experience
  • Facebook 'Fan Us' fixed position side tab button [Schoberg]
  • Tips for Developing Customer Surveys [Get Elastic]
  • 3 easy ways to make your testimonials more powerful [Success Works Copywriting]
  • How to Find and Remove Broken Links in Your Website [Six Revisions]
  • Top 87 Fonts A Designer Should Download [Design Your Way]
  • 10 Most Commonly Used Colors In Web Design And Their Examples [Web Design Booth]
  • 22 Useful Online Chart & Graph Generators [Hongkiat]

Email Marketing
  • Top E-Mail Subject Lines Focus on 'You' [eMarketer]
  • Why Even Good Senders Get Blocked [Email Marketing Voodoo]
  • Retail Email Unsubscribe Benchmark Study: Executive Summary [Retail Email]

Analytics
  • 10 Fundamental Web Analytics Truths: Embrace 'Em & Win Big [Occam's Razor ]
  • Facebook analytics reliablity issues you need to know [Webtrends]
  • Google Tackles Campaign Attribution with AdWords Search Funnels [Analytics Talk]

Radar Screen

  • New Pew data: newspaper pay walls will likely fail [Econsultancy]
  • Google Sees Mobile Search, Ads Expanding Quickly [WSJ Digits]
  • The Top 15 Brands on the App Store Might Surprise You [Mobile Crunch]
  • A new approach to China: an update [Google Public Policy]
  • Appvertising? What's That? [Find Resolution]
  • Foursquare coming to Bing Maps [The Social]

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