I’m spending way too much time maintaining a profile on Gowalla and Foursquare. Right now I’m balancing both systems on my iPhone. I’ll check-in on Gowalla, only to copy & paste my comments right into Foursquare minutes later. Why do I do this? Because each system gives me part of what I want in a location based service, but not everything.

Foursquare

I started out using Foursquare in early ‘09; there wasn’t a ton of users and I had trouble convincing others to use the service so I bailed; only to return months later once a user base developed.

Gowalla

I was introduced to Gowalla at lunch with Brian Williams, from Viget Labs. The interface was cleaner, snappier and more pleasant to use, so I picked it up.

Strengths & Weaknesses

I’ve broken down some key aspects that apply to both applications.
Background: For this experiment I’m checking in from Ziggi’s Coffee House in Longmont, CO.

Find a Location

Gowalla is quicker to pinpoint a location; whereas Foursquare usually requires me to search for a nearby location rather then just clicking check-in. *Victory goes to Gowalla.

*Note, if you are on EDGE or a similar network then your location can be off just enough to restrict you from checking in. Foursquare is a bit more forgiving.

To be fair to Foursquare, it did find my location only after typing “Zigg” in the search box. If this happened 10% of the time, I’d be cool with that. My experience is this happens more then 50% of the time, but perhaps experience differs based on coverage and geography.

The Check-In

Both give you the option to drop a comment and then share with your social networks; however only Foursquare gives you the option to “not notify” your Foursquare buddies. I think this is tremendously considerate of Foursquare, but lacking in Gowalla. What if I want to check-in to a mundane location like a grocery store or gas station? Do my friends really want to be notified of that? Maybe, maybe not… but give me the option to control my alert rather then pissing them off with silly alerts that have little value. *Victory Foursquare.

* Foursquare automatically sends a Tweet when the user becomes a Mayor. This is a bullshit move and should really be controlled by the user as an optional send.

Merit Badges

There is a certain novelty aspect to the Gowalla items and the Foursquare badges. To this day I haven’t seen a good explanation of the random things I’ve collected on Gowalla. Foursquare’s badges are somewhat more useful in that they indicate something about the behavior of the user. These features feel like they were created for Russell (UP Character). Slight victory to Foursquare.

Gowalla Miscellaneous

Thumbs Up: The ability to comment on the check-ins of others. This is a nice feature that encourages the followers to interact with each other.
Thumbs Down: Trips. Really, why would I be interested in trips that are hundreds of miles away from my current location. Gowalla, please allow the users to define Trips that are relevant to the locality.

Foursquare Miscellaneous

Thumbs Up: Location specific tips. Hugely interesting if you are visiting a new area or are interested in something new nearby.
Another Thumbs Up: Foursquare seems to be doing more with retailers. While visiting Noodles & Company in Boulder I was alerted to a “Nearby Special” at Modmarket. This sort of integration is what’s going to pay the bills down the road.

Thumbs Down: To-Dos. This seems half-baked. Where is my ability to add a new to-do?

As I said in the beginning, I’m sticking with both for the time being. I rely on Foursquare for the mundane locations and Gowalla for the more exciting places. If Foursquare would nail my location on the first try, then I think I would gravitate over to their app a bit more. If Gowalla allowed me to check-in from a wider geographic location and they added the option for me to control my alerts to friends then I would wholeheartedly stick with Gowalla.

We get a boatload of questions from our clients when switching or comparing analytics packages and reports. Those questions are easily addressed, but sometimes we come across a real stumper that makes no logical sense and causes use to lose confidence in our analytic packages. For this post, I’m going to pick on Google Analytics.

In a limited test of a particular landing page we received the following results from Google Analytics during the timeframe of February 1st, 2010 and March 17th, 2010.

Aside from being unimpressive; it’s also not trustworthy. (Below) The view of the “conversion funnel” for the same set of data. Note the discrepancy between the number of conversions / forms submitted?

To check our sanity we compared the data to Google Adwords. AdWords reported 5 conversions; ok at least that is consistent with the first graphic. But here is the crux, Google AdWords *should* have been reporting a higher conversion rate because we tested the forms multiple times from several IP addresses. Google Analytics is filtering out our tests based on a few selected IPs, therefore Analytics’ numbers *should* be lower. The second problem is the change in results data from switching views from the “Goal Overview” page to the “Funnel Visualization” page. Why would Google Analytics show 5 in one view and 1 in the other view, using the same data set?

We’re not the only ones struggling with Google Analytics apparent data discrepancies. It’s discouraging that problems like this go unaddressed by Google. I understand the service is free, but Google’s lack of addressing these problems on their forums is exactly why more corporate clients have returned to tools like Webtrends, Woopra, Clickly and Mint.

Ok, I certainly have my favorite places to eat, and of course like some more than others, but when it comes to lunch time around here I usually just go wherever anybody wants to go. I just don’t care that much, and am not a picky eater, so I’ll always find something to eat. However, I have a new obsession and this will always go on my list of can we? Can we please go here again??? Please?!

Yes, I’m talking about a fabulous new place called Modmarket. It’s located in the 29th Street Mall, next to Noodles, over by the Staples. I’ll admit I was a little hesitant to try it, since I didn’t actually realize it was a restaurant from the outside. I thought maybe it was an actual market for shopping or even a furniture store. Don’t ask why. I’m not really sure.

Anyway, every Friday, the Imulus owners take us out to lunch. Yay! And someone suggested we try this new place. We’re all hooked. I highly suggest you go check it out for yourself, but let me tell you a few of my favorite aspects.

LOVE the menu. It’s mostly salad, soup, and pizza. But, it’s unique. I have been getting a side salad called the Wintergreen (although I’ve tried the tomato basil soup, the cashew butternut squash soup, and the goat cheese pizza, and all are amazing!) Anyway, the Wintergreen salad is a hefty proportion for even a side salad (and I like my food), and it has mixed greens, walnuts, apples, roasted potato, goat cheese, fat-free honey herb dressing. See? Different? But, melts in your mouth. Amazing.

Let’s also take a moment to praise the $2 glass of wine. Not a little sippy cup full. A GLASS of wine. Good stuff too. To [sort of] quote the cashier, “Other places charge as much for a glass of wine that they spent on the bottle itself. We think that’s crap.”

After I received my receipt, right there on the print out is all of the nutrient information. I love it. An honest place, trying to do the right thing, and help everyone out.

Anyway, my wintergreen salad:

• Cost: $4.75
• Calories: 230
• Fat (g): 16
• Carbs (g): 17
• Protein (g): 9

The restaurant’s decor is also great. Very clean, modern, a little funky. It’s kind of narrow, and it’s not huge, but there are still plenty of places to sit and people are in and out pretty quickly. It’s also a great place to grab and go, since they are super fast. (The pizza takes a bit longer since it has to be made, but a salad from start to payment takes all of 3 minutes.)

Other fabulous items: the menu changes often (so you know the ingredients are fresh), they offer free wifi, even the silverware and plastic-ware were clearly chosen with an eye for detail.

Ok, enough gushing. Try it out for yourself. Just try to prove me wrong.

Note: I wrote this post on a personal blog a few years ago, but I think it still pertains to developers using Coda or any all-in-one application.

…Panic software (the makers of Transmit FTP) have released a new “all in one” web site management application called Coda. The basic goal of this app is to take a bunch of things needed to build websites and place them all together in one application. Now, pardon my skepticism and negativity, but the best part about using an operating system, particularly one like Mac OS X, is that I can easily use multiple simple or complex applications in a quick fashion to complete projects. And to put it in short, I just don’t get the point of putting everything together in one app, even if it is developed by some of the best software makers around.

In fact, the whole idea seems to go against all the benefits of running OS X, much less running multiple applications targeted to exactly what I need. Granted, some apps get a little intense and do more than I may need. For example, I can’t say I use scripting in many apps that support it, but that’s because I don’t have to. An application like TextMate gives me the opportunity to pick and choose exactly what I want from a text editor. It isn’t trying to do too much, particularly because if it did it would interrupt the way I work. The things I don’t use don’t get in my way, and the things I do use are easy to get to. Sure, there are applications out there .. iTunes .. hut…hum.. that do handle tons of tasks all under one umbrella. But guess what, advanced music creators probably don’t use iTunes to do the majority of their composing, editing, and refining. Even though it may have the capability to do some of these tasks. This is why Apple created iWeb for novice web builders, because it allows them to do what they need without getting drug into the depths of web development. The problem is, Coda is iWeb for pros, which is a paradox in and of itself.

Here’s the gist of what I am getting at — the ideal application should be great at handling everything you need to do and shouldn’t get in the way if you don’t use every feature it offers.

Coda, to me, doesn’t seem to follow this line of logic. Rather, it forces the developer to use everything it provides and it doesn’t give much leeway in one direction or the other. For instance, Coda comes with Transmit FTP built in. Which sounds great until you want to connect to a client’s site to update one tiny PDF file. Suddenly you find yourself launching the entire client web project just to make one tiny update, an update that won’t even require 80% of the tools that Coda brings up. It’s like using photoshop to casually view pictures, no one wants to do it! Having an application that does too much is like having a beautiful piece of jewelry that weighs too much to wear. It may look great but dealing with it first hand just seems like a waste of time and comfort.