Yakiji (Yah-key-jee)

Some great links to start your week out with bang!

• PopURLs – Need a quick fix on the latest web buzz. This fantastic site grabs the top items from some of most popular tech, social, and news sites and compiles it into a neatly laid out “plate of information goodness”.
• Twitterfall – If you’re still scratching your head on the whole idea of Twitter, then I don’t blame you. What I’ve come to learn is that the tools around Twitter are really what makes it great. Twitterfall is a tool that was built to filter out tweets across all of Twitter. It’s amazing for Reputation Management, Tweetup discussions, and real-time updates for major events. The main Twitter trends are in the left window. Yesterday’s big trend across Twitter was #snowmageddon, which was the big snowstorm we received last Thursday.
• Fireclick Index – I always encounter clients who ask me to give them an idea of how their website is doing in comparison to other companys’ websites. While it’s tough to give a good answer on this, I found some great benchmark metrics which I can pull out when needed. Fireclick (a web analytics vendor) has created a publicly available index providing benchmarks for key web analytics metrics that it has collected from all of its customers.
• [viral] Colbert Dials Up the 1997 Internet – This awesomely viral video from a Colbert Report has been floating around this week. “I did some pretty embarrassing things in 1997, but it all pales in comparison to what the internet was doing in 1997.”
• [viral] Finally, A Use for Twitter – This blog posting has heavily circulated Twitter over the past week. ‘Nuff said.
• Aaron Wall over at SEOBook discussed an interesting finding last week in that Google’s new search engine rankings are placing heavy emphasis on branding. Eric Schmidt is quoted as saying that “Brands are how you sort out the cesspool.”
• [viral] A video has been circulating Twitter from a recent Conan O’Brien Epsode called Everything’s Amazing, Nobody’s Happy. This guy puts it into perfect perspective.
• I skipped across a cool little poll/survey tool called TwtPoll.
• Just what I’ve been looking for! Bryan Eisenberg over at FutureNow mashed together an awesome compilation of Google Analytics hacks titled The Ultimate Google Analytics Plugins, Hacks & Tricks Collection.
• Adam Singer generously offers up his blog TheFutureBuzz as a case study of Analytics, Trends and Insights.
• Who doesn’t like to look at a cool looking chart? Juice analytics offers a cool chart chooser for download to PowerPoint or Excel.
• I can’t tell you how many lists I creat everyday. This handy-dandy website allows you to create printable checklists with no strings attached.